Jewish American Literature Since 1945

by Wade, Stephen

• ISBN13: 9781579581961
• ISBN10: 157958196X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-07-01
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Jewish American writing is an exciting and controversial genre within post-war literature.Jewish American Literature since 1945offers a student guide to the major writers, their key works, and their cultural and philosophical backgrounds. The theoretical underpinnings of the literature--including the postmodern, the masternarrative and metafiction--are also introduced in an accessible form. The themes, issues and philosophies of key writers such as Saul Bellow, Erica Jong, Arthur Miller, Cynthia Ozick, Philip Roth, and Isaac Bashevis Singer are inter-related, and wider literary and historical topics are explained.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Persistent Themes and Questions	1	(18)
The Historical and Literary Foundations: Pre-1945	19	(12)
Seminal Influences: Abraham Cahan, Anzia Yezierska and Henry Roth	31	(21)
Jewish-American Themes in Fiction I: Bellow, Malamud, Roth and Identity Crises	52	(21)
Jewish-American Themes in Fiction II: Erica Jong, Grace Paley and Tillie Olson	73	(19)
Explorations in Drama: From Arthur Miller to Tony Kushner	92	(19)
Peotry across the Generations: Duality to Assimilation	111	(19)
The Mediation of Jewishness in Cultural Texts: Cynthia Ozick, Leslie Fiedler, Paul Auster and Woody Allen	130	(19)
Relocating Moralism in Jewish America: Past and Present in Chaim Potok and the later Saul Bellow	149	(18)
New Directions across the Generations: From Philip Roth to Cynthia Ozick	167	(17)
Conclusion: A Renaissance or Revisionism?	184	(13)
Glossary of Yiddish Terms	197	(2)
Select Bibliography	199	(12)
Index	211