Surfaces of encounter: modern Hebrew literature and its readers in the early twentieth century

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

Modern Hebrew literature, at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, with its dramatic developments in poetry, short stories and essays, is mostly described as a central institution of the Jewish nation-building project. However, throughout its national period, this was a non-sovereign literature, produced and read by minor Jewish communities in their European host cultures. This chapter presents the far-reaching consequences of the transnational infrastructure of the modern Hebrew literary field. First, I argue with the assumption that modern Hebrew literature developed as a national, pre-statehood institution, and suggest to rethink the meaning of its territorial dispersion. Subsequently I readdress the fact that throughout its early constitutive national phases, the modern Hebrew readership never extended beyond a social minority. I argue for the identification of a new group of readers in the modern Hebrew readership: those with restricted Hebrew literacy, who could not understand modern Hebrew texts, but approved of the national implications of such writing.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationPlaces and Forms of Encounter in Jewish Literatures; Transfer, Mediality and Situativity
EditorsO. Terpitz, M. Windsperger
PublisherBrill
Pages207-225
Number of pages19
ISBN (Electronic)978-90-04-43528-5
ISBN (Print)9789004434936
DOIs
StatePublished - 2021

Publication series

NameTextxet: Studies in Comparative Literature
Volume94
ISSN (Print)0927-5754

RAMBI Publications

  • RAMBI Publications
  • Hebrew literature, Modern -- Europe -- 19th century -- History and criticism
  • Hebrew literature, Modern -- Europe -- 20th century -- History and criticism
  • Jews -- Books and reading -- Europe -- History -- 19th century
  • Jews -- Books and reading -- Europe -- History -- 20th century

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