But this novel, appearing as it did at the height of the cultural movement, failed to produce the powerful effect of his _Ahabat Zion_, although its charming biblical diction enraptured the lovers of _Melitzah_.

[1] [Footnote 1: An imitation of the biblical Hebrew diction.

Compare p.
225.] The noise of the new Jewish life, with its constantly growing problems, invaded the precincts of literature, and even the poets were impelled to take sides in the burning questions of the day.

The most important poet of that era, Judah Leib Gordon (1830-1892), who began by composing biblical epics and moralistic fables, soon entered the field of "intellectual poetry," and became the champion of enlightenment and a trenchant critic of old-fashioned Jewish life.

As far back as 1863, while active as a teacher at a Crown school [1] in Lithuania, he composed his "Marseillaise of Enlightenment" (_Hakitzah 'ammi_, "Awake, My People").