The Image of the Shtetl and Other Studies of Modern Jewish Literary Imagination

By Dan Miron

Book Overview

While A Traveler Disguised focused on the rhetoric of the speaking voice or the persona in these classics, the nine essays gathered here concentrate on the artistic reconstruction of the "world" conveyed by that persona.

As much as the earlier volume put to rest the conventional understanding of "Mendele the Book-Peddler" as a mere representative of the author, Sh. Y. Abramovitsh, this book invalidates the common views of the literary shtetl as a mere mimetic reflection of the historical Jewish shtetl of Eastern Europe and examines its structure as an autonomous aesthetic construct. These essays dwell particularly on the fictional modalities displayed in some of Sholem Aleichem's major works. They also offer innovative insights into the works of both earlier and later masters
such as A. M. Dik, Y. Aksenfeld, Y .Y. Linetski and Sh. Y. Abramovitsh, Y. L. Peretz, I. M. Vaysenberg, Sh. Asch, D. Bergelson, and I. B. Singer.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0815628587
• ISBN13: 9780815628583
• Release Date: December 2000
• Publisher: Syracuse University Press
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.1"