Background
Ibn Gabirol’s life was short and tragic. Born in Malaga, he was apparently orphaned at an early age and left without any family. In addition, from his youth he suffered from a malignant sickness.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/026803303X/?tag=2022091-20
1961
(His outstanding poetic composition is the long work, Kete...)
His outstanding poetic composition is the long work, Keter Malkhut (“Royal Crown”), an ode to the Almighty, which is both a philosophical meditation and a prayer. It is divided into four sections: the first two are devoted to the names of God, the third is devoted to the nature of the universe, and the fourth is a prayer.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1293699381/?tag=2022091-20
Ibn Gabirol’s life was short and tragic. Born in Malaga, he was apparently orphaned at an early age and left without any family. In addition, from his youth he suffered from a malignant sickness.
Gabirol's literary activity began early. He is said to have composed poems at the age of sixteen, and elegies by him are extant on Hai Gaon (died in 1038) and Jekuthiel (died in 1039), each of which was written probably soon after the death of the person commemorated. About the same time he also wrote his Anaq, a poem on grammar, of which only 97 lines out of 400 are preserved. He imitated Moslem models, and was the first to open to Jewish poets the door of versification, meaning that he first popularized the use of Arabic metres in Hebrew. It is as a poet that he has been known to the Jews to the present day, and admired for the youthful freshness and beauty of his work, in which he may be compared to the romantic school in France and England in the early 19th century. Besides his lyrical and satirical poems, he contributed many of the finest compositions to the liturgy, which are widely different from the artificial manner of the earlier payyetanim. The best known of his longer liturgical compositions are the philosophical Keter Malchut and the Azharot, on the 613 precepts. Owing to his pure biblical style he had an abiding influence on subsequent liturgical writers. Outside the Jewish community he was known as the philosopher Avicebron. The credit of identifying this name as a medieval corruption of Ibn Gabirol is due to S. Munk, who showed that selections made by Shem Tobh Palqera from the Meqor Jayylm by Ibn Gabirol, corresponded to the Latin Fans Vitae of Avicebron. The Latin version, made by Johannes Hispalensis and Gundisalvi about one hundred years after the author's death, had at once become known among the Schoolmen of the 12th century and exerted a powerful influence upon them, although so little was known of the author that it was doubted whether he was a Christian or a Moslem. The teaching of the Fons Vitae was entirely new to the country of its origin, and being drawn largely from Neoplatonic sources could not be expected to find favour with Jewish thinkers. The year of his death is a matter of dispute, with conflicting accounts having him dying either before age 30 or by age 48.
His major philosophical work is "Mekor Hayyim" (“Fountain of Life”). Written in Arabic (the original text has disappeared), it maintains that all things have matter and form, which are united in the universe by God’s will.
It presents a general system which is largely, but not entirely, neo-Platonic. Unlike other medieval works by Jewish thinkers, this book is devoid of biblical or Jewish references. It survived in its Latin translation, Toni Vitae, and was presumed to have been written by an Arab philosopher called Avicebron. As such, it exerted considerable influence on Christian thinkers of the 13th century.
Only in the 19th century did the French scholar, Salomon Munk, discover a Hebrew translation and identified Avicebron with Ibn Gabirol.
(His outstanding poetic composition is the long work, Kete...)
He also wrote national verse in which he deplored the situation of the Jewish people in their exile and expressed his longing for redemption and the advent of the Messiah. However, he is best known for his sacred poetry, as he created a body of verse outstanding in its religious feeling and command of the Hebrew language. Many of these works entered the liturgy of Jewish communities, Sephardic and Ashkenazic alike. They are suffused with his love of the Divine and sometimes express a mystic longing to merge into God.
Quotations:
Ibn Gabirol’s “Shahar Avakkeshka”
At the dawn I seek Thee,
Refuge, Rock sublime;
Set my prayer before Thee in the morning, And my prayer at eventime.
I before Thy greatness Stand and am afraid:
All my secret thoughts Thine eye beholdeth Deep within my bosom laid.
And, withal, what is it Heart and tongue can do?
What is this my strength, and what is even This, the spirit in me, too?
But, indeed, man's singing May seem good to Thee;
So I praise Thee, singing, while there Yet the breath of God in me.
(Translated by Nina Salaman)
From his teenage years, Gabirol suffered from some disease, possibly lupus vulgaris, that would leave him embittered and in constant pain. He indicates in his poems that he considered himself short and ugly. Of his personality, Moses ibn Ezra wrote: "his irascible temperament dominated his intellect, nor could he rein the demon that was within himself. It came easily to him to lampoon the great, with salvo upon salvo of mockery and sarcasm". He has been described summarily as "a social misfit".
