The former’s description is but a photograph of a Jewish wedding, a record of a Jewish person’s wedding. While their novels might all describe Jewish weddings, the descriptions in Zangwill and the New Jewish Writers are sharply different. Not only were these former writers’ works (such as Zangwill) written in English - which is a difference in appearance - but they also lack the thinking that is particular to the Jewish people. But if we compare these works to those of the New Jewish Writers, such as Pinski, there is a considerable difference. He wrote a large number of Jewish novels, and also authored numerous books discussing Jewish life.Īnd Franzos. He was born in London in 1864 and got his bachelor’s degree from the University of London. Those who can read English might have already read and known the works of the modern novelists who are good at describing Jewish customs, such as ZangwillĪuthor’s Note: Zangwill’s parents were Jewish. Although they live among the great powers, they still keep their own beliefs, customs and eastern thinking. Under the rule of the different governments in each country, they constantly suffer the most cruel treatment because of racial and religious differences. They live dispersed throughout the entire world. Jewish people are among the oldest peoples in the world and the only people who do not have a motherland in modern times. The Triumvirate of Masters in the Rising Age of New Jewish Literature at the End of the 19th Century * In geveb is grateful to David Hull for his editorial work on this translation.ġ. This translation accompanies a blog post with interviews about the state of Yiddish Studies in China. One of the most prestigious literature prizes in China, the Mao Dun Literature Prize (established in 1982 in Mao Dun’s will), promotes novel writing. This demonstrates how Yiddish language politics were held up as an example outside of a Jewish context.Īfter the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Dun was designated as the first minister of the Ministry of Culture and was elected the chairman of the China Literature Arts Representative Assembly because of his contributions to modern Chinese literature. Although his representation of the relationship between Yiddish and Hebrew in his article is inaccurate, the mistake is significant for scholars because it demonstrates how a Chinese intellectual broadcasted his ideal of language reform by using the materials from another culture, namely Yiddish. Mao Dun was a left-wing writer who accepted the ideas of language reformists and advocated writing in oral Chinese instead of classical Chinese. Several misconceptions are evident in the article, stemming from the author’s own cultural context. The article and translated Yiddish stories were part of a larger project of introducing the literary works of the “weak nations,” whose situation the editors felt was analogous to the political position of China. It was published alongside a few Yiddish stories in one of the most famous literary magazines in China at that time, Xiaoshuo Yuebao (The Short Story Magazine). It represents Chinese intellectuals’ understanding of Yiddish literature in the 1920s when Yiddish literature was first introduced to China. This piece by Mao Dun (pen name of Shen Yanbing, 1896 – 1981), originally published in Chinese in 1921, was the first article to thoroughly introduce major modern Yiddish writers to the Chinese readership.
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