Early Yiddish Epic

Unlike most other ancient European, Near Eastern, and Mediterranean

civilizations, Jewish culture surprisingly developed no early epic tradition:

while the Bible comprises a broad range of literary genres, epic is not

among them. Not until the late medieval period, Beginning in the fourtheeth

century, did an extensive and thriving epic tradition emerge in Yiddish.

Among the few dozen extant early epics, there are several masterpieces,

of which ten are translated into English in this volume. Divided between

the religious and the secular, the book includes eight epics presented in

their entirety, an illustrative excerpt from another epic, and a brief heroic

prose tale.These texts have been chosen as the best and the most interesting representatives

of the genre in terms of cultural history and literary quality:

the pious "epicizing" of biblical narrative, the swashbuckling medieval

courtly epic, Arthurian romance, heroic vignettes, intellectual high art, and

popular camp.