The History of Yiddish Literature in the Nineteenth Century

Wiener, Leo, 1862-1939Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.7
Word count
710K words
Chapters
71

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Yiddish LiteratureLiterary HistoryLiterary GiantsGroup BiographyAcademic MonographEast European Jewry19th CenturyCultural ChangeJewish CultureCross-Cultural View

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The History of Yiddish Literature in the Nineteenth Century by Leo WienerAuthor: Wiener, Leo, 1862-1939,Language: English, Class: PJ: Language and Literatures: Oriental languages and literatures, Release Date: Aug 29, 2014

Editor's review

This book is Leo Wiener's systematic survey of nineteenth-century Yiddish literature, written in English and distributed free by Project Gutenberg. Its value lies not in popular introduction but in its scholarly-historical view of a frequently overlooked literary tradition during a pivotal century: linguistic change, the rise and fall of genres, and the lines of representative authors and works. For readers in Jewish studies, comparative literature, or modern East European history, it offers an early English-language window. Readers should note its period perspective and standpoint, and not treat it as the last word of contemporary research. The electronic edition is convenient for searching and cross-reference, suitable as background reading for papers or as a text for thematic reading groups, and suited to readers with some initial knowledge of Yiddish literature who wish to trace the scholarly lineage further.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the table of contents and introduction first to grasp the author's periodization and criteria of selection, then read selected chapters closely according to interest.
  2. Read alongside a timeline of modern Jewish history or the formation of East European nation-states to reduce background obstacles.
  3. Take brief notes on names and titles for easy cross-reference with later research materials.
  4. Read critically, noting the difference between the scholarly perspective of the book's era and that of today's research.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71

FAQ

Is this book in the original Yiddish or an English work? It is a work of literary history written in English by Leo Wiener. Its subject is nineteenth-century Yiddish literature, but the book itself is not a Yiddish work; readers need not know Yiddish to read it, though some familiarity with the background helps.
Can I understand it without a background in Jewish culture? Yes, but supplementary reading is needed. The book involves many historical figures, religious and cultural vocabulary, and East European social background; it is advisable to first grasp the basic outlines of the nineteenth-century East European Jewish Enlightenment and the language situation before entering the main text.
What kind of reading does the electronic edition suit? As a public-domain e-book, it is better suited to reference and thematic reading than to reading straight through. One can skip about by author, period, or genre and cross-check against other research materials, which makes it appropriate as background for papers or as material for reading-group discussion.
Are the book's views still applicable today? It is an early English-language scholarly work, and its scholarly perspective and choice of materials bear the marks of its time. Today it should be read as a document of scholarly history and as background reference rather than as settled conclusions; where it evaluates particular writers or periodizes, it is best used in comparison with contemporary research.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Wiener, Leo, 1862-1939 Author · American · 1862–1939

Leo Wiener (1862–1939) was an American linguist and Slavic scholar, a professor at Harvard University, and the father of the mathematician Norbert Wiener. A pioneer in Slavic studies and language teaching in the United States, he long took an interest in the language and culture of Eastern European Jews. One of his works is held in this collection: The History of Yiddish Literature in the Nineteenth Century. Taking nineteenth-century Yiddish literature as its subject, the book examines it as an independent modern literary tradition rather than as a mere footnote to dialectological material, and it occupies a significant place in early scholarship on Yiddish literature. Because public information is limited, the details of his life cannot be elaborated here; yet the choice of subject and the method of this work alone reveal the breadth of his vision and his rigorous scholarly attitude.