Dan Pagis

1930 - 1986

Israeli poet, professor.

Born in Bukovina, Pagis spent three years in a Ukrainian concentration camp, from which he escaped in 1944. Arriving in Palestine after the war, he learned Hebrew and taught on a kibbutz. He obtained his doctorate in medieval Hebrew literature and taught at Hebrew University, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and Harvard University. The Holocaust, a formative experience in Pagis's life, had a profound effect on his writings. Like many other Holocaust survivors, however, he was able to let his memory surface only after the capture of Adolf Eichmann in 1960 and the trial in Jerusalem. It was only in Pagis's third poetry collection, Gilgul, published in 1970, that poems which actually turn to the Shoah were first published. Among Pagis's books of poems are The Shadow Dial (1959), Late Leisure (1964), and Twelve Faces (1981). Scholarly works include Change and Tradition: Hebrew Poetry in Spain and Italy (1976) and The Riddle (1986). Last Poems was published posthumously. As the title suggests, the poems center on dying and death.

Bibliography

Pagis, Dan. Variable Directions: The Selected Poetry of Dan Pagis. San Francisco, CA: North Point Press, 1989.

Pagis, Dan, with a foreword by Robert Alter. Hebrew Poetry of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.

Pagis, Dan, with an introduction by Robert Alter. The Selected Poetry of Dan Pagis (Literature of the Middle East), translated by Stephen Mitchell. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.

— JULIE ZUCKERMAN
UPDATED BY ADINA FRIEDMAN

Dan Pagis' poem at the Konzentrationslager Belzec victims memorial

Dan Pagis (1930 - 1986) was an Israeli poet and lecturer.

Born in Bukovina in Eastern Europe, as a child he was imprisoned in a concentration camp in Ukraine, but escaped in 1944. In 1946 he arrived safely in Palestine. Eventually he taught Medieval Hebrew Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

His first published book of poetry was Sheon ha-Tsel ("The Shadow Clock") in 1959. In 1970 he published a major work entitled Gilgul - which may be translated as "Revolution, cycle, transformation, metamorphosis, metempsychosis," etc. Other poems include: "Written in Pencil in the Sealed Railway-Car," "Testimony, "Europe, Late," "Autobiography," and "Draft of a Reparations Agreement."

Pagis knew many languages, and translated multiple works of literature throughout his lifetime.

Book

The Modern Hebrew Poem Itself (2003), ISBN 0-8143-2485-1

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