Description
Book SynopsisArgues that Viennese Jewish modernism is explicable as an aesthetic reconfiguration of Jewish tradition in response to multifaceted crises of memory, identity and language. Examines the works of Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929), Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931), Richard Beer-Hofmann (1866-1945) and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939).
Trade Review“Gillman’s book is as rich and paradoxical as Jewish assimilation itself, for the author is at once telling a particularly Jewish and a larger European story of aesthetic, cultural, and sometimes even political engagement with tradition.”
—William Donahue,Duke University
“Argued with verve and originality, this book calls for a ‘more inclusive understanding of the place of Jewish writing’ in the modernist tradition. Illustrations and notes, including the German originals of the passages cited, add to the book’s appeal.”
—E. Wickersham Choice
“Gillman has provided a pathbreaking work that consolidates the insights of recent secondary literature on Jewish experience in the fin-de-siècle and establishes ‘Jewish’ modernism. Her book will be read with interest by scholars of literature, modernism, Jewish studies, and cultural theory.”
—Timothy E. Pytell H-Net Reviews
“Viennese Jewish Modernism is a major accomplishment and provides a wealth of new ideas and information.”
—Alison Rose Journal of Jewish Identities
“Viennese Jewish Modernism productively engages German Studies, literary theory, and (Viennese) Judaica on several sophisticated levels. Further, it serves both as a contribution to reappraisals of fin de siècle Modernism and a useful interpretive companion to less familiar or critically ignored works by the authors listed in its title.”
—Daniel C. Villanueva Rocky Mountain Review
“[Gillman] has created a fine de siècle for our own time, a reinterpretive historical hologram like that of the writers she discusses.”
—Margaret Olin Modern Philology
Table of ContentsContents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Origins of Viennese Jewish Modernism
Part 1: Genres of Memory
1. Freud’s Modernism in A Childhood Memory of Leonardo da Vinci (1910), “The Moses of Michelangelo” (1914), and Moses and Monotheism (1938)
2. Hofmannsthal’s Jewish Pantomime: Der Schüler (The Student, 1901)
Part 2: Hybrid Plots, Virtual Jews
3. How a Viennese Modernist Becomes a Jew: Beer-Hofmann’s Der Tod Georgs (The Death of Georg, 1900)
4. Anatomies of Failure: Jewish Tragicomedy in Schnitzler’s Der Weg ins Freie (The Road into the Open, 1908) and Professor Bernhardi (1912)
Part 3: Performing the Hebrew Bible
5. Mythic Memory Theater and the Problem of Jewish Orientalism in Hofmannsthal’s Ballet Josephslegende (Legend of Joseph, 1912)
6. The Forgotten Modernism of Biblical Drama: Beer-Hofmann’s Die Historie von König David (The History of King David, 1918–33)
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
