{"product_id":"reading-across-cultures-translating-romances-fables-and-poetry-in-medieval-ashkenaz-9781501782411","title":"Reading Across Cultures: Translating Romances, Fables, and Poetry in Medieval Ashkenaz","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eReading across Cultures \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eexplores a body of innovative Jewish literary works from the Middle Ages.\u003c\/b\u003e In late twelfth- and thirteenth-century Ashkenaz--the Jewish communities in northern France, Germany, and England--Jewish authors translated several Old French and German stories into Hebrew. These stories are distinctly non-Jewish, drawing on the Christian romances of King Arthur and Alexander the Great and the classical fables of Aesop.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCaroline Gruenbaum argues that these translations--rather than adapting stories that reflected Jewish religious or cultural practice--represent a body of secular Hebrew literature in Ashkenaz and evidence of a shared literary culture between Jews and Christians in medieval Europe. Reading Hebrew animal fables, folktales, and chivalric romance, Gruenbaum describes an intellectual climate that allowed the literati of medieval Ashkenaz to read across cultures. In these translations, produced by medieval Jews for entertainment and for wisdom, Gruenbaum finds a new literary awakening in Ashkenaz.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eCaroline Gruenbaum is Assistant Director of Digital Content at the Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization and the coeditor of \u003ci\u003eMedieval and Early Modern Jewish Romance\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Cornell University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51454081794322,"sku":"9781501782411","price":49.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_dc5a40a4-50a8-4fc7-84ca-e62cbbad647e.jpg?v=1751994384","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/reading-across-cultures-translating-romances-fables-and-poetry-in-medieval-ashkenaz-9781501782411","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}