Back to home page The Israel Prize in the Study of Hebrew and General Literature 2009 The Minister of Education, Prof. Yuli Tamir, has announced today that the winners of the Israel Prize for the year 2009 are Prof. Israel Levin in Hebrew Literature, and Prof. Reuven Tsur in general literature. The Committee’s reasons (general literature): Professor Reuven Tsur is one of the outstanding, internationally renowned scholars of literature in Israel, who has the reputation of an exceptionally original researcher and theoretician of literature. Prof. Tsur is known as one of the founding fathers of the cognitive approach to literature, who also coined the term “cognitive poetics”. By virtue of applying his cognitive assumptions to the study of poetic prosody (meter, rhythm, musicality, rhyme) Prof. Tsur is recognized as one of the leading researchers in the world in this field. Another unique aspect of Prof. Tsur’s research is the study of hypnotic poetry, in which the reader’s attention is drawn to the sound rather than the meaning of language. In addition, Reuven Tsur has translated poetry into Hebrew, and has published studies in the theory of translation, the teaching of literature, and critical competence. Prof. Tsur has published sixteen books, seven of them in English, and has written many articles published in prestigious Israeli and international journals. On all these grounds, the committee found Prof. Reuven Tsur worthy of the Israel Prize in general literature for the year 2009.