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Author Finkelstein, Norman, 1954- author.

Title Like a dark rabbi : modern poetry & the Jewish literary imagination / Norman Finkelstein
Published Cincinnati : Hebrew Union College Press, [2019]

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Description 1 online resource (xviii, 289 pages)
Contents Preface -- Introduction: two Shapiros: thoughts on poetry and secular Jewish culture -- Ghosts of Yiddish; or, postvernacularity in Jewish American poetry -- Charles Reznikoff: modernism, diaspora, and the problem of Jewish identity -- Allen Grossman and the poetry of holiness -- Michael Heller: between the sacred and the profane -- Chana Bloch: surfaces and depths -- "The darker wisdom of the Jews": Henry Weinfield's dialectical irony -- Rachel Tzvia back: between Israel and the diaspora -- Dark rabbis and secret Jews -- Afterword: "diasporas of imperfection."
Summary "Wallace Stevens' "dark rabbi," from his poem "Le Monocle de Mon Oncle," provides a title for this collection of essays on the "lordly study" of modern Jewish poetry in English. Including chapters on such poets as Charles Reznikoff, Allen Grossman, Chana Bloch, and Michael Heller, this volume explores the tensions between religious and secular worldviews in recent Jewish poetry, the often conflicted linguistic and cultural matrix from which this poetry arises, and the complicated ways in which Jewish tradition shapes the sensibilities of not only Jewish, but also non-Jewish, poets. Finkelstein, described as "one of American poetry's indispensible makers" (Lawrence Joseph), whose previous critical work has been called "the exemplary study of the religious aspect of the works of contemporary American poets" (Peter O'Leary), considers large literary and cultural trends while never losing sight of the particular formal powers of individual poems. In Like a Dark Rabbi, he offers a passionate argument for the importance of Jewish-American poetry to modern Jewish culture, and to American poetry more broadly, as it engages with the contradictions of contemporary life."-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Print version record
Subject American poetry -- Jewish authors -- History and criticism
American poetry -- 20th century -- History and criticism
American poetry -- 21st century -- History and criticism
Jews -- United States -- Identity
Jews in literature.
Judaism and literature -- United States
Judaism in literature.
Jewish religious poetry, American -- History and criticism
Judaism and secularism.
LITERARY CRITICISM -- Jewish.
American poetry
American poetry -- Jewish authors
Jewish religious poetry, American
Jews -- Identity
Jews in literature
Judaism and literature
Judaism and secularism
Judaism in literature
United States
Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780878201747
0878201742
Other Titles Modern poetry & the Jewish literary imagination
Modern poetry and the Jewish literary imagination