Immanuel The Roman - Verse

Verse

The originality that Immanuel lacked as a scholar, he possessed as a poet. In his verse this is given free play, and his poems assured him a place in history. A product of his time, in sympathy with the social and intellectual life of medieval Italy, he had acquired the then-prevalent pleasing, easy, humorous, harmlessly flippant tone and the art of treating questionable subjects wittily and elegantly. He composed in both Hebrew and Italian, but only a few of his Italian poems have survived. In a truly national spirit, they portray and satirize the political and religious conditions of that time. Immanuel was held in high regard by his contemporaneous Italian poets. Two Italian sonnets referring to his death have been preserved, which place him as a poet beside Dante. In fact, Immanuel knew Dante's works and drew upon them. His Italian and Hebrew poems are both full of traces of Dante's style and themes.