'And his heart a precious violin': the musical layering of S.Y. Agnon's Yiddish story Toytntants

The 1908 Yiddish story Toytntants was the last creation of the young Galician author Shmuel Yosef Halevi Czaczkes before his transformation into S.Y. Agnon of the Land of Israel. The story, which can be understood as a farewell to the romantic-sentimental style identified by Agnon with his writing i...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Jewish social studies 2011-10, Vol.18 (1), p.127-144
Main Author: Kotlerman, Ber
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agnon, S.Y
Halevi Czaczkes, Shmuel Yosef
Hebrew
Israel
Jews
Literature
Music
Spain
Tales
Violin
Writing
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The 1908 Yiddish story Toytntants was the last creation of the young Galician author Shmuel Yosef Halevi Czaczkes before his transformation into S.Y. Agnon of the Land of Israel. The story, which can be understood as a farewell to the romantic-sentimental style identified by Agnon with his writing in Yiddish, was also his longest and most elaborate creation in either Yiddish or Hebrew up to the time of its writing. It stands in sharp contrast to the 'single-storied' structure of Agnon's previous tales, some of which were even integrated into Toytntants. This article analyzes Agnon's use of 'musicalization' in the text, a phenomenon that scholars have also identified in James Joyce's writings. When read in historical context, Toytntants reveals new aspects of the cultural atmosphere in which Agnon lived while he resided in Galicia. Adapted from the source document.
ISSN:0021-6704
DOI:10.1353/jss.2012.0006