Overview
Medieval Hebrew poets in al-Andalus adapted Arabic meters, genres, rhetoric, and courtly conventions while drawing intensively upon biblical vocabulary. They composed praise, elegy, satire, love poetry, wine songs, devotional verse, and meditations on exile. This literary culture was neither simple imitation nor isolated Jewish expression. Poets reshaped Arabic models to address Jewish patrons, communities, scripture, and religious experience. Their work required advanced knowledge of Hebrew grammar and Arabic poetics. Andalusian poetry became a major source of prestige and later influenced Sephardic liturgy, education, and literary memory across the Mediterranean.
