A Menorah for Athena: Charles Reznikoff and the Jewish Dilemmas of Objectivist PoetryThe first major Jewish poet in America and a key figure of the Objectivist movement, Charles Reznikoff was a crucial link between the generation of Pound and Williams, and the more radical modernists who followed in their wake. A Menorah for Athena, the first extended treatment of Reznikoff's work, appears at a time of renewed interest in his contribution to American poetry. Stephen Fredman illuminates the relationship of Jewish intellectuals to modernity through a close look at Reznikoff's life and writing. He shows that when we regard the Objectivists as modern Jewish poets, we can see more clearly their distinctiveness as modernists and the reasons for their profound impact upon later poets, such as Allen Ginsberg and Charles Bernstein. Fredman also argues that to understand Reznikoff's work more completely, we must see it in the context of early, nonsectarian attempts to make the study of Jewish culture a force in the construction of a more pluralistic society. According to Fredman, then, the indelible images in Reznikoff's poetry open a window onto the vexed but ultimately successful entry of Jewish immigrants and their children into the mainstream of American intellectual life. |
Contents
ONE CALL HIM CHARLES | 13 |
TWO IMMANENCE AND DIASPORA | 49 |
THREE HEBRAISM AND HELLENISM | 81 |
FOUR SINCERITY AND OBJECTIVISM | 117 |
AFTERWORD TRILLING AND GINSBERG | 152 |
Chronology | 163 |
179 | |
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A Menorah for Athena: Charles Reznikoff and the Jewish Dilemmas of ... Stephen Fredman Limited preview - 2001 |
A Menorah for Athena: Charles Reznikoff and the Jewish Dilemmas of ... Stephen Fredman Limited preview - 2001 |
A Menorah for Athena: Charles Reznikoff and the Jewish Dilemmas of ... Stephen Fredman No preview available - 2001 |
Common terms and phrases
Acosta Allen Ginsberg American Jewish American Jews American poetry anti-Semitism Arnold become biblical burnt book called century Charles Reznikoff Christian contemporary critical cultural pluralism Diana Diaspora dichotomy Dubnow Eliot English essay ethnic exile Ezekiel Ezra Pound father George Oppen Ginsberg Greek Harshav Hebraic Hebraism and Hellenism Hebrew Heine Holocaust Horace Kallen Imagist immanence Israel issue Jewish culture Jewish dilemmas Jewish history Jewish humanism Jewish identity Jewish intellectuals Jewish poet Judaism Kallen koff language Lionel Trilling Louis Zukofsky Lowenthal Marrano Marx Mary Oppen Menorah Journal Menorah movement Menorah writers mother Nine Plays novel Objectivism Objectivists Oppenheim poem poetic prophetic prose published rabbi religion religious Rezni Reznikoff's poetry seems sense sincerity social speaks Spinoza stanza story style Testimony tion tradition translation Trilling's UCSD Untermeyer Uriel Uriel Acosta verse Waters of Manhattan words writing Yiddish York Yovel Zion Zionism Zukofsky's