Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Ozick, Cynthia (Vol. 155) - Joseph Alkana (essay date winter 1997)

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Joseph Alkana (essay date winter 1997)

SOURCE: Alkana, Joseph. “‘Do We Not Know the Meaning of Aesthetic Gratification?’: Cynthia Ozick's The Shawl, the Akedah, and the Ethics of Holocaust Literary Aesthetics.” Modern Fiction Studies 43, no. 4 (winter 1997): 963–90.

[In the following essay, Alkana offers a positive assessment of The Shawl, noting Ozick's stance against universalism in stories such as “The Shawl” and “Rosa.”]

For American Jewish writers, the Holocaust remains a compelling subject for fiction; and their work constitutes an ongoing reply to Theodor Adorno's famous claim “that it is barbaric to continue to write poetry after Auschwitz” (87). The task of telling Holocaust stories has involved a recognition that beyond the fundamental value of presenting witness and survivor accounts, whether in nonfictional or fictional forms, there is value in telling more stories, particularly stories of...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Sarah Blacher Cohen (essay date summer 1990)
   2. Mark Krupnick (essay date fall–winter 1991)
   3. Cynthia Ozick and Mario Materassi (interview date spring–summer 1992)
   4. Cynthia Ozick and Elaine M. Kauvar (interview date fall 1993)
   5. Andrew Lakritz (essay date winter 1994)
   6. Sarah Blacher Cohen (essay date 1994)
   7. Sarah Blacher Cohen (essay date 1994)
   8. Victor Strandberg (essay date 1994)
   9. Peter Kerry Powers (essay date fall 1995)
   10. Joseph Alkana (essay date winter 1997)
   11. Susanne Klingenstein (essay date 1997)
   12. Millicent Bell (review date winter 1998)
   13. Janet L. Cooper (essay date spring 2000)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. Cynthia Ozick