Fiedler on the Roof: Essays on Literature and Jewish Identity - Softcover

Fiedler, Leslie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0879239492 ISBN 13: 9780879239497

Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher, 1994

Synopsis

Twelve essays on Jewish culture as explored through the works of Joyce, Styron, Isaac Bashevis, Singer, and others.

About this title

About the Author:

Leslie Fiedler is Samuel Clemens Professor and SUNY Distinguished Professor at SUNY Buffalo. One of the greatest living literary critics, his works include LOVE AND DEATH IN THE AMERICAN NOVEL (1960), AN END TO INNOCENCE (1955); NUDE CROQUET (1969), and FREAKS (1978).

From Library Journal:

The author, now Samuel L. Clemens Professor of English at SUNY Buffalo, has been an iconoclast and cultural critic during his long career. Although he broke with the New York intellectual movement in the late 1970s, the influence of Jewish culture continued to concern him. This work of 12 essays, all previously published during the past 20 years, reflects this preoccupation. Through analysis of authors' works--ranging from early writings, Chaucer, and Shakespeare to James Joyce, Bernard Malamud, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and William Styron--Fiedler unravels his thread of the uneasy crosshatching of Judaism and Christianity in literature from its inception. Two essays--"A Meditation on the Book of Job" and "Why Is the Holy Grail Knight Jewish?"--are illustrative of this symbiotic relationship. His treatment of anti-Semitism is particularly insightful, especially in the final essay, "In Every Generation: A Meditation on the Two Holocausts." Disturbing, provocative, and brilliant, these essays are a further acclamation of his scholarship. Recommended for academic libraries and Jewish literature collections.
- Mary Ellen Beck, Troy
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0879239492
• ISBN 13: 9780879239497
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 184