S. Y. Agnon Criticism
S. Y. Agnon, born Shmuel Yosef Czaczkes in 1888, emerges as a seminal figure in twentieth-century Hebrew literature, celebrated for his mastery of modernist techniques and linguistic artistry. Renowned for his profound engagement with Jewish tradition and history, Agnon's narratives delve into themes of spiritual faith, secularism, and cultural disintegration, often within a framework of biblical, Talmudic, and Hasidic influences, as Nitza Ben-Dov observes in her analysis of the linguistic depth in his works (The Web of Biblical Allusion).
Agnon's storytelling is both complex and innovative, blending modern literary devices such as symbolism and nonlinear narratives with traditional elements, a synthesis noted by Leon Yudkin in his examination of Agnon's character development (Leon Yudkin). His works, including surreal fables and coming-of-age tales, often draw comparisons to Kafka, exploring existential dilemmas and psychological inertia, as seen in "The Face and the Image" and "To the Doctor." This Kafkaesque quality underscores Agnon's exploration of cultural and spiritual isolation.
The complexities of translating Agnon's work have spurred critical debate. Some scholars, like Cynthia Ozick, argue that his nuanced writing is best appreciated in Hebrew. Despite these challenges, Agnon's exploration of Jewish identity amidst modernity's encroachments remains pivotal, as analyzed by Lippman Bodoff and others (Lippman Bodoff). His fiction often examines the tension between tradition and modernity, spirituality and secularism, personal and communal, embodying a nuanced struggle between past and future, faith and reason.
Critics have extensively explored Agnon's work, reflecting its significant impact on modern Hebrew literature. Gershon Shaked delves into the intertextual depth of Agnon's narratives, while Bernard Knieger and Nehama Aschkenasy investigate his thematic complexities (Bernard Knieger, Nehama Aschkenasy). Agnon's writings have been analyzed through diverse critical perspectives, including psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, and feminist theory, as observed by Naomi B. Sokoloff and others (Naomi B. Sokoloff).
Born in Buczacz, Galicia, Agnon immigrated to Palestine in 1924, where his writing continued to evolve thematically and stylistically. His early Yiddish poems and profound Hebrew narratives grapple with religious and cultural dilemmas, as elaborated by Arnold J. Band (Arnold J. Band). Agnon's innovative narrative techniques, which weave ancient Hebrew folklore with modern elements, present unique challenges in translation as noted by Naomi Shepherd (Naomi Shepherd). His story "Betrothed" reflects on universal communication failures, an allegory explored by Dan Jacobson (Dan Jacobson). Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1966, Agnon became the first Israeli and first Hebrew writer to receive this honor, affirming his enduring influence on the literary landscape.
Contents
- Principal Works
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Agnon, S(hmuel) Y(osef) (Vol. 14)
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Two Views of Agnon: I. Dan Jacobson
(summary)
In the following essay, Dan Jacobson argues that S. Y. Agnon's work, particularly the story "Betrothed," serves as an allegory for universal communication failures, drawing deeply on Talmudic tradition and evoking the loss experienced with the destruction of East European Jewry.
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Two Views of Agnon: 2. Naomi Shepherd
(summary)
In the following essay, Naomi Shepherd examines S. Y. Agnon's literary style and themes, highlighting his unique use of Jewish tradition, irony, and historical narrative to explore themes of perplexity and cultural disjunction, and discusses the challenges of translating his work due to its complex interweaving of biblical and modern elements.
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Arnold J. Band
(summary)
In the following essay, Arnold J. Band explores the thematic and stylistic evolution of S. Y. Agnon's work from his early Yiddish poems to his later Hebrew writings, highlighting the continuity of motifs such as religious struggle and the Jewish experience, while emphasizing Agnon's narrative innovation and the complex interplay between traditional folktale elements and modern literary techniques.
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Two Views of Agnon: I. Dan Jacobson
(summary)
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Agnon, S. Y. (Short Story Criticism)
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Seeing into the Hidden Interior of Things
(summary)
In the following excerpt, Leviant observes that Agnon incorporated some of his favorite themes into the narratives of Twenty-One Stories, a collection that the critic perceives as steeped in Hebrew history, culture, and language.
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The Whole Loaf: Agnon's Tales of the Ancestral World
(summary)
In the following excerpt, Hochman surveys Agnon's short fiction treating the culture of the shtetl, the Hebrew village prior to the nineteenth century.
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Agnon's Mediterranean Fable
(summary)
In the following excerpt, Alter calls attention to Agnon's intermingling of ancient Hebrew and Greek worlds in Betrothed, a strategy that enhances the story's fabulous quality, according to the critic.
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Symbolic Analogue in Agnon's 'Metamorphosis'
(summary)
In the following excerpt, Yudkin examines Agnon's narrative technique as it is demonstrated in 'Metamorphosis' ('Panim aherot'), focusing on the author's ability to suggest character histories extending beyond the events explicitly described in the story.
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Shmuel Yosef Agnon's The Face and the Image
(summary)
In the following essay, Knieger attempts to define the central theme of the story "The Face and the Image" ("Ha-panim la-panim").
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The Book of Fables
(summary)
In the following excerpt, Fisch examines dreamlike aspects of the stories in Book of Fables, which is also known as Books of Deeds. Fisch discusses the combination of dreaming and waking consciousness in Agnon's fiction, suggesting that the dreams present a specific Agnonian type with a unique syntax, rooted in Jewish history.
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'Edo and Enam'—The Ironic Perspective
(summary)
In the following essay, Fuchs maintains that an understanding of Edo and Enam as an ironic story enables the reader to make sense of the story's "strangeness," namely its "digressions, internal contradictions, sudden transitions from realism to phantasy, neologisms and anachronisms."
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Passivity in Agnon
(summary)
In the following excerpt, Aberbach studies the meaning underlying the passivity of characters in Agnon's short fiction.
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Wherefrom Did Gediton Enter Gumlidata?—Realism and Comic Subversiveness in 'Forevermore'
(summary)
In the following essay, Fuchs focuses on the protagonist—both his characterization and behavior—in Forevermore (Ad Olam) in order to reveal "the underlying irony of the story, which is its most salient feature."
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Sexual Symbols in 'Another Face' by S. Y. Agnon
(summary)
In the following essay, Hakak offers a Freudian interpretation of "Another Face" ("Panini aherot"), claiming that sexual symbols pervade the story. Note: The title of the story, here translated as "Another Face," is also known as "Metamorphosis" (see Leon I. Yudkin, 1974).
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S. Y. Agnon's Art of Composition: The Befuddling Turn of the Compositional Screw
(summary)
In the following essay, Mazor uses the stories 'Between Two Cities' ('Ben sete 'arim') and 'Two Scholars Who Lived in Our Town' ('Sne talmide hakamim sehayu be 'irenu') to demonstrate that Agnon sometimes employs puzzling narrative structure and plot development as conscious strategies.
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Passion Spins the Plot: Agnon's 'Forevermore'
(summary)
In the following essay, Sokoloff asserts that the plot of Forevermore (Ad Olam), which features "repetition, circularity, episodic fragmentation of narrative line, and disconnected events," is intended by Agnon to lend irony to the ostensible progress made by the protagonist.
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The Doctor's Dilemma: The Nature of Jealousy in Agnon's 'The Doctor and His Divorcée'
(summary)
In the following essay, Kubovy provides a psychological analysis of the protagonist's jealousy in 'The Doctor and His Divorcée.'
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The Genres and Forms, the Novella, and the Short Stories
(summary)
In the following excerpt, Shaked identifies five primary types of short stories written by Agnon.
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Kabbalistic Feminism in Agnon's 'Betrothed'
(summary)
In the following essay, Bodoff interprets Betrothed as a symbolic tale in which the modern Jew (represented by the protagonist Jacob) is torn between Hebraism (in the figure of Shoshanah) and the appeal of the secular worldliness (as symbolized by Jacob's travels, career, and involvement with gentile women).
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The Web of Biblical Allusion
(summary)
In the following excerpt, Ben-Dov contends that a buried layer of biblical allusion in "The Dance of Death, or the Lovely and Pleasant" belies the overt meaning of the story.
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Expressing and Repressing the Female Voice in S. Y. Agnon's In the Prime of Her Life
(summary)
In the following essay, Sokoloff offers a feminist reading of the novella In the Prime of Her Life, exploring the implications of gender as a thematic concern in modern Hebrew texts and the tensions between a male-dominated tradition and modern cultural change.
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Seeing into the Hidden Interior of Things
(summary)
- Agnon, S(hmuel) Y(osef) (Vol. 4)
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Agnon, S. Y. (Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism)
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Shmuel Yosef Agnon's ‘The Face and the Image’
(summary)
In the following review of an Agnon short story, Knieger calls attention to the Hebrew meaning of the phrase “face-to-face,” concluding that the narrator is facing his own isolation from traditional faith.
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Biblical Substructures in the Tragic Form: Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge; Agnon, And the Crooked Shall Be Made Straight.
(summary)
In the following essay, Aschkenasy compares biblical references in The Mayor of Casterbridge and And the Crooked Shall Be Made Straight, concluding that Agnon's use of the biblical dimension is more subtle than Hardy's.
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Inside Agnon
(summary)
In the following review of Estherlein, a compilation of Agnon's letters to his wife from 1924-1931, Green states that Agnon reveals few literary secrets but offers insights into his thinking about other matters.
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Wherefrom Did Gediton Enter Gumlidata? Realism and Comic Subversiveness in ‘Forevermore’
(summary)
In the following essay, Fuchs deconstructs an Agnon story emphasizing the central irony, which she claims other critics have neglected.
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Midrash and Narrative: Agnon's ‘Agunot’
(summary)
In the following chapter from a collection of essays discussing literary manifestations of Midrash, an ancient biblical form of exegesis, Shaked demonstrates how Agnon's early story “Agunot” uses forms of intertextuality borrowed from old Hebrew traditions.
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The Kafka-Agnon Polarities
(summary)
In the following chapter from a book of essays on Franz Kafka, Band reviews previous criticism comparing Kafka's and Agnon's writings, arguing that many of the alleged similarities in the works of the two writers have been overemphasized.
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Agnon's Antagonisms
(summary)
In the following essay, Ozick uses Agnon's novella Edo and Enam to reflect on the ambiguities of translation and on the oppositions between ideas of safety and destruction, redemption and illusion, and exile and return.
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Discriminated Occasions and Discrete Conflicts in Agnon's A Simple Story
(summary)
In the following essay, Ben-Dov discusses the “assertive mother” theme in A Simple Story and describes Agnon's use of repetition or variation of motifs to highlight the rivalry between two women for one man's attention.
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Agnon without End
(summary)
In the following review of the English translation of Shira, Mintz states that the novel portrays the end of the liberal German-Jewish world view.
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Introduction to Between Exile and Return: S. Y. Agnon and the Drama of Writing
(summary)
In the following excerpt from the introduction to her full-length semiotic study of Agnon's writings, Hoffman reviews her complex textual approach, encompassing psychoanalysis, traditional Hebrew criticism, and poststructuralist literary theory. (Hoffman's book contains a complete bibliography of primary and secondary sources.)
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Expressing and Repressing the Female Voice in S. Y. Agnon's In the Prime of Her Life
(summary)
In the following essay, Sokoloff applies a feminist critique to an Agnon novella, which she says associates the tradition and uncertain future of the Hebrew language with its repressed and unfulfilled female characters.
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Between Shelter and Home
(summary)
In the following essay, Appelfeld disputes other critics who say that Agnon exemplifies the “sacred” in Judaism vs. the “profane” of secularism, asserting that Agnon had a more holistic approach which combined both tradition and change.
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Review of A Book That Was Lost and Other Stories
(summary)
In the following review, Bernheim offers a mostly positive assessment of a new edition of Agnon short stories.
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Introduction: “Hebrew Literature in the 1990s”
(summary)
In the following excerpt from an essay on contemporary Hebrew literature, Riggan calls Agnon the best of the “conservatives” who appreciated the nuances of the Hebrew language tradition.
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Literature, Politics, and the Law: On Blacksmiths, Tailors, and the Demolition of Houses
(summary)
In the following essay, Almog draws linguistic comparisons between a story by Agnon and the transcript of an actual legal case in modern-day Israel, concluding that the literary text reveals more of the true nature of human conflict.
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Essay on ‘The Sense of Smell’
(summary)
In the following essay from a collection which offers several commentaries about specific works of Hebrew literature, Roskies discusses the complexities of an Agnon short story, “The Sense of Smell.” Despite its brevity, Agnon's “The Sense of Smell” combines disparate elements that are not easily reconciled. The story's homiletic structure, storybook headings, archaic style, and anecdotal plot, and its coincidental encounters, dream sequence, and moment of mystical reverie bespeak a world of all-too-perfect harmony. Yet the narrative is riddled with riddles. Is the writer/protagonist a pious raconteur or a misanthrope? Does not the closed and self-referential world of Torah study, with its obsessive search for authority, clash with the solipsism of the artist, who lives in the subjective realm of the senses? The sukkah, furthermore, is both lowly and sublime; the “sense of smell” of the story's title implies a sensibility at once neotraditional and radically innovative. Having lavished so much attention upon the wording of a single phrase chosen, almost erased, and ultimately validated, what is Agnon trying to say about the relationship between writing as a craft and writing as a religious calling?
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Shmuel Yosef Agnon's ‘The Face and the Image’
(summary)
- Agnon, S(hmuel) Y(osef) (Vol. 8)
- Further Reading