A Gost, a Converso and a Poem: A Letter to Gonzalo de la Caballería by Shelomo Ben Reuben Bonafed

Abstract

In this paper I propose to analyze a poem by Shelomo ben Reuben Bonafed, a renowned Hebrew poet who lived in the kingdom of Aragon during the first half of the 15th century. Analysis of this poem will allow us to see how Bonafed, a disciple of the circle of poets of Zaragoza, played his part in a re-invention of Hebrew literature that had been initiated a few years earlier by his masters, Shelomo de Piera and Vidal/Yosef ben Labi. Bonafed thought that the Hebrew language and Hebrew poetry were the depositaries of a «Hispano-Hebrew» cultural identity of which he felt himself to be a part.