Hebrew and Modernity - Softcover

Hebrew and Modernity.

Original brochure. Zustand: Gut. 192 p. From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - Condition: Minimally rubbed binding, otherwise in perfect condition. / Zustand: Minimal beriebener Einband, ansonsten im einwandfreien Zustand. - Content: The essays collected in this volume, which were written from 1981 to 1993, propose a double set of continuities for the understanding of modem Hebrew literature: first, between the modem literature and the very long literary tradition that preceded it, and then between the literature of contemporary Israel and the century and a half of varied literary activity in Hebrew on European soil that antedated the creation of a Hebrew vernacular culture in Palestine. There are obviously crucial distinctions to be made between these two respective later phases of the literature and the antecedents on which they drew, as I try to explain, but the continuing relevance of the antecedents needs to be kept in mind. During the period when these essays were written, increasing attention has been devoted in America by readers and critics to Israeli literature, which has become abundantly available in English translation. This attention is partly justified by intrinsic literary worth-the Israeli novel, for example, seems to have entered a "boom" phase vaguely reminiscent of the Latin American novel a couple of decades ago and is partly the consequence of the disproportionate fascination of Americans, especially Jewish Americans, with Israel. But the interest in Israeli literature, not only in America but in France, Italy, and elsewhere, is accompanied by certain misperceptions about its character. Few readers outside Israel are aware of the vigorous presence of a modem Hebrew literature in Europe before the dawn of Zionism that made both Zionism and the Hebrew culture of Israel possible. And since translations, even deft ones, tend to regularize and flatten the knotty distinctiveness of the original texts, the linguistic vitality and stylistic peculiarities of the Hebrew remain invisible to readers of English versions. Hebrew literature today is not merely a Colombian or Peruvian literature written in the Middle East in a Semitic language, but has its own abiding oddness, its own distinctive cultural problematic. What I have tried to do here is to highlight those elements of distinctiveness, in part by rendering an account of modem Hebrew literature as an evolving tradition from the eighteenth century to the present. These essays were written for various occasions, but in sorting them out, I was happy to discover that the contours of a large historical picture began to emerge from them. Thus, I start with a piece that seeks to explain the fascinating anomalies of modem Hebrew literature from its inception to the present. There follow discussions of the relation of secular poetry in modem Hebrew to the millennia-old tradition of Hebrew verse; of the evolution of a viable language for realistic fiction in Hebrew; of relatively early experiments in Hebrew introspective writing and prose fiction in Europe and America; of the development of the Israeli novel through the first four decades of statehood; and of the response to the Holocaust in Hebrew poetry. The last four essays are considerations of individual writers, one of Yehuda Amichai, the leading Israeli poet, and three involving S. Y. Agnon, the major modem Hebrew novelist. Four of these essays were originally published in Commentary, and single essays first appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Tel-Aviv Review, Prooftexts, and in a volume called The Legacy of Jewish Migration, and I thank the editors of all those publications for their willingness to let me use the material here. The essay on Agnon's Shira was originally the afterword to the English translation of that novel, and I am grateful to Schocken Books for allowing me to reprint the piece. The inclusion of one item needs special explana. Artikel-Nr. 1175568

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