The Satirical Poetry of Abraham Gómez Silveira: Mocking Christianity and the Dialogue with the Hispanic Tradition

• In Event: Graduate Student Lightning Session: Jewish Cultures

Abstract

During the 17th century, many Iberian new-Christians—descendants of those Jews who converted to Christianity at the end of the 15th century—arrived in Amsterdam after being prosecuted by the Inquisition because of the Jewish customs they kept practicing in secrecy. Once in Amsterdam, they were free to embrace Judaism and at the same time to preserve their Iberian peninsular cultural heritage by speaking, reading, and writing in Spanish. The works they created following Hispanic literary trends expressed the hyphenated cultural identity of the community: they were compositions which proudly exhibited the author’s Iberian background, but also affirmed their re-discovered Judaism, sometimes, by contradicting or even mocking Christian faith. My paper focuses on the satirical poetry authored by Abraham Gómez Silveira (1656-1750) whereby he ratifies his Jewishness by ridiculing the Christian sacraments, the clergy, and the gospels. Regardless the blasphemous tone of Silveria’s poems, they attest the pervasive influence that 17th-century Spanish literature—and more specifically, the satiric poetical movement which flourished during the Spanish Golden Age—had on the works developed by Amsterdam’s Jewish writers. Therefore, the controversial poetry of Abraham Gómez Silveira still testifies the dialogue of Amsterdam’s Jews with their Hispanic cultural tradition.

Author

• Hernán Matzkevich, Purdue University