TY  - JOUR
A1  - Tumanov, Vladimir
T1  - Novelizing myth in Sholem Asch's "Moses"
T2  - Yiddish
N2  - Sholem Asch's epic novel "Moses" has been criticized for a number of shortcomings. One of the main reproaches has do with Asch's attempt to present myth as history in a serious and at times "stuffily reverential" style (Siegel 194). Leslie Fiedler compares Asch's retelling of Exodus-Deuteronomy to Thomas Mann's version of Genesis in "Joseph and his Brothers" and argues that Asch, unlike Mann, lacks the irony of Mann's approach which is essential for handling mythological material in the modern age. Fiedler maintains that Mann's novel is superior to Asch's because Mann does not try to modernize the original material by rationalizing it (Fiedler 73-4). While there is much truth in what Fiedler says about "Moses", the contrast between Mann and Asch is not quite so clear-cut. Undoubtedly, the two authors did handle their material in radically different ways. However, both authors were writing modern realistic novels, i.e., they were dealing with a genre that demands structural coherence. And in this respect one must not overemphasize the difference between Asch's and Mann's treatment of myth.
KW  - Asch, Sholem
KW  - Mann, Thomas / Joseph und seine Brüder
KW  - Mythos <Motiv>
Y1  - 2014
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/36396
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-363965
SN  - 0364-4308
VL  - 11
IS  - 1-2
SP  - 162
EP  - 184
PB  - Flushing, N.Y.
CY  - Queens College Press
ER  -