Micah Joseph Lebensohn (also known as Mikhal) (1828-1852), born in Vilnius, Lithuania, was the son of Abraham Dov Lebensohn, one of the leading Jewish intellectuals of his time and an outstanding poet. Micah Lebensohn received a thorough Hebrew education, including intensive Bible study. He was privately tutored in German, Polish, Russian and French. He began his literary endeavors by translating German poetry.
At the age of seventeen, Lebensohn was severely stricken with tuberculosis and was sent to Berlin for medical treatment, where he read and studied as well. He spent the summer of 1850 at the Reinerz Spa, where his condition improved and where he wrote his best work. At the age of nineteen, he translated part of Vergil's Aeneid from German, establishing his reputation in the Vilnius literary world. He suffered a relapse the next iwnter, and returned to his father's home in Vilnius, where he died. His father published his poems in 1851 and then, posthumously, a collection of his remaining works in 1870.
Books Published in Hebrew
Shirei Bat Ziyyon, Vilnius, Ram, 1851
Kinnor Bat Ziyyon, Vilnius, Ram, 1870
Adam and Mikhal's Collected Poems, Vilnius, Ram, 1895
Poems, New York, Kadimah, 1918
Poems, Translations and Letters, Berlin, Ayyanot, 1924
Poems, Kohelet, 1929
Mikhal's Poems, Dvir, 1944
Books in Translation
Shirei Bat-Tsion
German: Vilnius, (pub. unknown), 1902
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