מבעלות פאטריארכלית להתפתחות היסוד הנשי שבנפש: עיון בפואמה 'הכרת הישות' לאורי צבי גרינברג

The Uri Zvi Grinberg's long poem 'Recognition of Being', first published in his collection Great Fear and a Moon (1925), evinces still more violent rupture of the boundaries that characterizes all the poems of the book. This is apparent in the poem's themes, in the syntax that flaunts the rules, in the springy and associative composition, and in the tempestuous rhythm of the poetic lines. The unruly text of the poem and the incoherence of its linguistic and stylistic elements realize its central concern. This is the social anarchy and moral turpitude in Berlin at the beginning of the 20th century. Breaking the genre frameworks gives actual expression to the deep rift running through Berlin society and culture, in which the poet lived and worked. It leads to an introspective scrutiny of the condition of human beings having lost their belief in God and exposed to terrible loneliness owing to the collapse of their supportive family and social frameworks. In consequence of his feelings of fear and solitude, and his terror before the impending destruction of his body, the speaker-hero is caught in an ever deepening spiritual trap, and he unleashes his anger and frustration through his treatment of the woman. The struggles for power and control between the sexes become a new focus for recognition of his being and an examination of his male identity. The aura of the street nurtures the tissue of lies behind patriarchal mastery, but the speaker's enclosure within the house opens fissures in them, and leads to the self-heeding inherent in an analysis that cuts into his soul and his living flesh. The end of the poem, a confessional monologue, highlights a profound inner change in the lyrical speaker. This may be likened to the passage from patriarchal mastery, which denies the female element and scorns its embodiments, to renewed attachment to the inner female element in the poet's personality; this joining appears as the key to individuation and self-creation.