Table Of ContentM e ï r A a r on G ol d s c h m i d t
and the Poetics of Jew ish f iction
Judaic Traditions in Literature, Music, and Art
Harold Bloom and Ken Frieden, Series Editors
Select titles from Judaic Traditions in Literature, Music, and Art
Bridging the Divide: The Selected Poems of Hava Pinhas-Cohen
Sharon Hart-Green, ed. and trans.
Lingering Bilingualism: Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Literatures in Contact
Naomi Brenner
Literary Hasidism: The Life and Works of Michael Levi Rodkinson
Jonatan Meir; Jeffrey G. Amshalem, trans.
My Blue Piano
Else Lasker-Schüler; Brooks Haxton, trans.
Social Concern and Left Politics in Jewish American Art: 1880–1940
Matthew Baigell
Travels in Translation: Sea Tales at the Source of Jewish Fiction
Ken Frieden
The Travels of Benjamin Zuskin
Ala Zuskin Perelman
Vilna My Vilna: Stories by Abraham Karpinowitz
Helen Mintz, trans.
Meïr Aaron
Goldschmidt
and the Poetics
of Jewish Fiction
. . .
dav i d G a n t t G u r l e y
Syracuse University Press
Copyright © 2016 by Syracuse University Press
Syracuse, New York 13244-5290
All Rights Reserved
First Edition 2016
16 17 18 19 20 21 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
For a listing of books published and distributed by Syracuse University Press,
visit www.SyracuseUniversityPress.syr.edu.
ISBN: 978-0-8156-3486-7 (hardcover) 978-0-8156-3472-0 (paperback)
978-0-8156-5384-4 (e-book)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Available from publisher upon request.
Manufactured in the United States of America
This book is dedicated to all the Fontenots, but especially my mother, Janice Marie.
Without her undying love and unwavering support for my education,
none of this would have been possible: you taught me
my first words and how to love language.
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Prologue: “In the Spirit of ‘Num” 1
1. “I Am of the Tribe of Levi” 27
2. Midrash and Metaphor 60
3. The World of Allusion 103
4. The Figure of the Rabbi 138
Epilogue: The Wandering Jew as Possibility 169
Notes 177
Bibliography 223
Index 241
Acknowledgments
M
any people over the course of my education and life have con-
tributed to this work in various ways. My days at Bard College were
seminal in my formation as a writer and thinker, and I would like
to begin by thanking Richard C. Wiles. Dick, as I called him, was
an amazing and gifted teacher yet treated me like a colleague. More
than any other he was the scholar who introduced me to the life of
the mind, and I will always be grateful for the many penetrative and
engaging discussions I had under his tutelage. In the acknowledg-
ments to my BA thesis, I wrote how everything I would write after
Bard would always bear his name, so I am more than proud to men-
tion him here; I am beholden. While at the University of California
at Berkeley, I was fortunate to work with many outstanding scholars
in Near Eastern Studies and Scandinavian. I would like to thank my
dissertation advisor, Karin Sanders, who saw early iterations of this
work and offered many productive thoughts on Meïr Goldschmidt
and Golden Age Denmark. I am especially indebted to Joseph Dug-
gan and Carol Clover. I became more invested in Goldschmidt while
I was at Brandes Skolen in Copenhagen under the direction of Pil
Dahlerup. Pil’s thoughts and insights were invaluable to my prog-
ress as a scholar of Danish, and she brilliantly encouraged me to look
deeper into Goldschmidt’s English stories. I spent many hours in the
manuscript collection of the Royal Library in Copenhagen thanks
to the generosity of Ivan Boserup. Over the years I have had many
great discussions with Poul Behrendt and Mads Bunch concerning
Goldschmidt, and I am grateful for their enthusiasm and expertise.
My time at the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard allowed me to
ix
x acknowledGments
refocus and refine my thinking on Goldschmidt in a very produc-
tive environment. I would like to thank Bernard Septimus and Shaye
Cohen for all their early support in this endeavor. I would also like
to thank my colleagues in the Department of German and Scandina-
vian at the University of Oregon, especially Michael Stern, who has
from the beginning believed in this project, and Jeffrey Librett, who
advised me during the manuscript’s publication. My good friend Mar-
tin Klebes was also instrumental in his support and always unstint-
ing with his time. My colleagues in Judaic Studies—Deborah Green,
David Wacks, Judith Baskin, and Daniel Falk—also offered many
valuable perspectives during the book’s composition. I would like to
thank my longtime friend and collaborator Edan Dekel, whose spirit
of ethics and whose love of poetry have guided me past many a wind-
mill. I would also thank all the students who have sat in my Scandina-
vian and Jewish literature classes over the years and who, after being
assigned to do so, diligently read and discussed Goldschmidt with me.
Many thanks to the Oregon Humanities Center for their generous
support. Last but not least, I am also incredibly grateful for my family,
friends, and community. My mother and sister have been such special
influences in my life, and I owe them much more than could ever be
said. I will show this book to my grandfather, Pervis Fontenot, and
I suspect that his pride will mean the most of all. It has been a great
pleasure sharing Goldschmidt with you all.
