Description

For over a hundred years the so called "Wallich-manuscript" has fascinated scholars of various disciplines, be it Yiddish/Jewish studies, music, comparative literature and the like. It is one of the most important sources for the study of Yiddish and German folksongs as well as Purim-plays in the Early Modern period. The unknown collector of the texts has gathered more than sixty songs, plays, parodies and so on, some of them Yiddish transcriptions of German works, others original writings. For the first time, this fascinating collection has now been edited completely and a commentary has been prepared. The result is a complex picture of Yiddish culture in Early Modern times.

"It is an important achievement of Diana Matut...that she presents a new edition of the work in her Dichtung und Musik im frühneuzeitlichen Aschkenas. The manuscript is indeed very important for our understanding of Ashkenazi culture in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, and the new edition...offers a meaningful contribution to the field." - Claudia Rosenzweig, Bar-Ilan University
"The two volumes are a carefully prepared and beautifully published edition and commentary, by Diana Matut, of two collections of Yiddish poems assembled sometime in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries..." - Don Harrán, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem