Exiles on Main Street: Jewish American Writers and American Literary Culture
How have Jews reshaped their identities as Jews in the face of the radical newness called America? Julian Levinson explores the ways in which exposure to American literary culture—in particular the visionary tradition identified with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman—led American Jewish writers to a new understanding of themselves as Jews. Discussing the lives and work of writers such as Emma Lazarus, Mary Antin, Ludwig Lewisohn, Waldo Frank, Anzia Yezierska, I. J. Schwartz, Alfred Kazin,...
Search in google:
How have Jews reshaped their identities as Jews in the face of the radical newness called America? Julian Levinson explores the ways in which exposure to American literary culture — in particular the visionary tradition identified with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman — led American Jewish writers to a new understanding of themselves as Jews. Discussing the lives and work of writers such as Emma Lazarus, Mary Antin, Ludwig Lewisohn, Waldo Frank, Anzia Yezierska, I. J. Schwartz, Alfred Kazin, and Irving Howe, Levinson concludes that their interaction with American culture led them to improvise new and meaningful ways of being Jewish. In contrast to the often expressed view that the diaspora experience leads to assimilation, Exiles on Main Street traces an arc of return to Jewish identification and describes a vital and creative Jewish American literary culture.ChoiceLevinson's well-researched book makes a significant contribution to studies of Jewish American literature and Jewish cultural continuity. . . . Highly recommended.
Acknowledgments ixIntroduction 1Breathing Free in the New World: Transcendentalism and the Jewish Soul 13Songs of a Semite: Emma Lazarus and the Muse of History 16Ecstasies of the Credulous: Mary Antin and the Spirit of the Shtetl 37Battling the Nativists: Mystics, Prophets, and Rebels in Interwar America 53"Pilgrim to a Forgotten Shrine": Ludwig Lewisohn and the Recovery of the Inner Jew 56Modernist Flasks, Jewish Wine: Waldo Frank and the Immanence of God 76Cinderella's Dybbuk: Anzia Yezierska as the Voice of Generations 93Yiddish Interlude 119From Heine to Whitman: The Yiddish Poets Come to America 121"Orating in New Yorkese": The Languages of Jewishness in Postwar America 143"My Private Orthodoxy": Alfred Kazin's Romantic Judaism 147The Jewish Writer Flies at Twilight: Irving Howe and the Recovery of Yiddishkayt 171Conclusion 192Notes 201Index 225
\ Choice Reviews Online"Levinson's well-researched book makes a significant contribution to studies of Jewish American Literature and Jewish Cultural continuity." —S.L. Kremer, Choice Reviews Online, 2007\ — S.L. Kremer\ \ \ \ \ \ Jerusalem Post"... a standout work in the field of American Jewish Literature... Levinson is well-attuned to the critical trends and thinking that are prevalent in the world of literary scholarship and applies them to the book's selected authors and texts in a way that is fresh and thoughtful..." —Shana Rosenblatt Mauer, Jerusalem Post, December 12, 2008\ — Shana Rosenblatt Mauer\ \ \ \ Jewish Book World"... Exiles on Main Street is an original contribution to the continuing story of the creative encounter between Jewish writers and America." —Jewish Book World, Summer 2009\ \ \ \ \ ChoiceLevinson's well-researched book makes a significant contribution to studies of Jewish American literature and Jewish cultural continuity. . . . Highly recommended.\ \
