The poetics of identity in Judeo-Maghrebi poetry: The poetry of Sadia Levy, Ryvel, and Blance Bendahan

The central goal of this study is to present a literary interpretation of three rare Judeo-Maghrebi collections of poetry and thereby assess their aesthetic worth and importance to French, Jewish, and cultural studies. The chosen texts are a paradigm of a diverse culture which produced a rich poetry during a turbulent time. They are Sadia Levy's Abishag, published posthumously (Monte Carlo: Regain, 1957); Ryvel's Les Chants du Ghetto (Tunis: La Kahena, 1937); and Blanche Bendahan's Poemes en Short, winner of the Grand Prix de l'Humour (Paris: R. Lacoste, 1948). These collections of poetry were written in French during French rule and fashioned after French models. These North African Jewish writers adopted French prosody and abandoned traditional Sephardic forms of Cantar, Ballad, Proverb, and Copla. The poets Sadia Levy (1876-1951), Ryvel (1890-1972), and Blanche Bendahan (1903-1975) represent the founding generation of successful poets in Algeria and Tunisia who were first to publish in French. This study provides an important perspective on the evolution of Judeo-Maghrebi poetry by examining Levy's creative dimension of the self in Abishag, Ryvel's compassionate self in Les Chants du Ghetto, and Bendahan's fragmented self in Poemes en Short. An examination of their textual interpretants reveals a constant effort to search for the poetic self and attain freedom from all traditional cultural constraints. The result of this effort is an inner personal turmoil and an inner conflict while demonstrating a new sensibility.