The meaning of Yiddish.

Harshav, Benjamin, 1928-2015

Verlag: Berkeley : University of California Press, 1990

Beschreibung

, Harshav, Benjamin, 1928-2015. The meaning of Yiddish. Berkeley : University of California Press, 1990, xix, 205pp., very good dust-jacket with some wear around edges, very good gray cloth, lightly used copy. INSCRIBED for Bill Goodwin and SIGNED cordially Benjamin H. on front endpaper. Dust-jacket by Seventeenth Street Studios. CONTENTS: Language and history -- The nature of Yiddish -- Some sociological aspects -- The semiotics of Yiddish comunication -- The modern Jewish revolution -- The historical perspective of modern Yiddish literature -- Yiddish poetry in America -- Intropsectivism: a modernist poetics -- The end of a language - JACKET TEXT: Yiddish, the language shared for a thousand years by Jews in Europe and brought with them to America, embodied an unusual culture and gave birth to a rich literature. With a rare combination of erudition and insight, Benjamin Harshav investigates the major aspects of Yiddish language and culture. His analysis shows, through many revealing examples, where Yiddish came from and what it has to offer even as it ceases to be a "living" language. Both historical and linguistic contexts are excitingly explored. The first part of the book emphasizes the openness of Yiddish in a plurilingual society, where it served as a bridge between the European world and the Hebrew textual tradition. It was a language of fusion, combining Latin, German, Slavic, Hebrew, and "International" elements in one grammatical and semantic system. Often sentences and proverbs, while overtly using German source words, had a Hebrew subtext that lent them depth, irony, and a multidirectional perspective. At the same time, the multilingual speakers of Yiddish could reach out to other cultures for words, expressions, and beliefs. Harshav discusses the nature of the Hebrew library and shows how Yiddish discourse folklorized the primary features of the Hebrew learning tradition. Such modes as dialogue, questioning, and quoting became central to Yiddish discourse, behavior, and literature, as reflected in the writings of Sholem Aleichem and Moyshe-Leyb Halpern, and transformed in other languages by writers including Kafka and Saul Bellow. In the second part of the book, we see how the flourishing of Yiddish literature after the end of the nineteenth century was part of a cultural explosion that accompanied Jewish migration into new areas. Harshav gives particular attention to modern Yiddish poetry in the United States and the theory of "Introspectivism" developed by Yiddish poets in New York in the 1920s. Drawing on the fine translations and analyses offered in American Yiddish Poetry, he shows how the end of the Yiddish language became, itself, a central theme of Yiddish poetry. Benjamin Harshav (Hrushovski) is Blaustein Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at Yale University and Porter Professor Emeritus of Literary Theory and Poetics at Tel Aviv University. American Yiddish Poetry: A Bilingual Anthology (California 1986), which he co-edited with Barbara Harshav, features his excellent translations and his extensive historical and critical commentary. 9780520059474 ISBN 0520059476. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 86829

Bibliografische Details

Titel: The meaning of Yiddish.

Verlag: Berkeley : University of California Press, 1990

Einband: Hardcover

Zustand des Schutzumschlags: Schutzumschlag

Signiert: Signatur des Verfassers