The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885)

The Renascence of Hebrew
Literature (1743-1885) [with
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Title: The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885)
Author: Nahum Slouschz
Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7530] [Yes, we are more than

one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on May 14,
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RENASCENCE HEBREW LIT. ***

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THE RENASCENCE OF HEBREW LITERATURE (1743-1885)
BY NAHUM SLOUSCHZ
Translated from the French * * * * *
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
The modern chapter in the history of Hebrew literature herewith
presented to English readers was written by Dr. Nahum Slouschz as his
thesis for the doctorate at the University of Paris, and published in book
form in 1902. A few years later (1906-1907), the author himself put his
Essay into Hebrew, and it was brought out as a publication of the
_Tushiyah_, under the title _Korot ha-Safrut ha-'Ibrit ha- Hadashah_.
The Hebrew is not, however, a mere translation of the French book.
The material in the latter was revised and extended, and the
presentation was considerably changed, in view of the different attitude
toward the subject naturally taken by Hebrew readers, as compared
with a Western public, Jewish or non-Jewish.
The present English translation, which has had the benefit of the
author's revision, purports to be a rendition from the French. But the
Hebrew recasting of the book has been consulted at almost every point,
and the Hebrew works quoted by Dr. Slouschz were resorted to directly,

though, as far as seemed practicable, the translator paid regard to the
author's conception and Occidentalization of the Hebrew passages
revealed in his translation of them into French.
HENRIETTA SZOLD.
* * * * *
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I
In Italy--Moses Hayyim Luzzatto
CHAPTER II
In Germany--The Meassefim
CHAPTER III
In Poland and Austria--The Galician School
CHAPTER IV
In Lithuania--Humanism in Russia
CHAPTER V
The Romantic Movement--Abraham Mapu
CHAPTER VI
The Emancipation Movement--The Realists
CHAPTER VII
The Conflict with Rabbinism--Judah Leon Gordon
CHAPTER VIII
Reformers and Conservatives--The Two Extremes
CHAPTER IX
The National Progressive Movement--Perez Smolenskin
CHAPTER X
The Contributors to _Ha-Shahar_
CHAPTER XI
The Novels of Smolenskin
CHAPTER XII

Contemporaneous Literature
CONCLUSION
INDEX
* * * * *
INTRODUCTION
It was long believed that Hebrew had no place among the modern
languages as a literary vehicle. The circumstance that the Jews of
Western countries had given up the use of their national language
outside of the synagogue was not calculated to discredit the belief. The
Hebrew, it was generally held, had once been alive, but now it
belonged among the dead languages, in the same sense as the Greek
and the Latin. And when from time to time some new work in Hebrew,
or even a periodical publication, reached a library, the cataloguer
classified it with theologic and Rabbinic treatises, without taking the
trouble to obtain information as to the subject of the book or the
purpose of the journal. In point of fact, in the large majority of cases
they were far enough removed from Rabbinic controversy.
Sometimes it happened that one or another Hebraist was overcome with
astonishment at the sight of a Hebrew translation of a modern author.
And he stopped at that. He never went so far as to enable himself to
pass judgment upon it from the critical or the literary point of view. To
what purpose? he would ask himself. Hebrew has been dead these
many centuries, and to use it is an anachronism. He considered it only a
curiosity of literature, literary sleight of hand, nothing more.
The bare possibility of the existence of a modern literature in Hebrew
seemed so strange, so improbable, that the best-informed circles
refused to entertain the notion seriously--perhaps not without some
semblance of a reason for