终极的游移
|
摘要
艾萨克?巴什维斯?辛格(1904-1991),美籍犹太作家,1978年诺贝尔文学奖获得者。辛格用一种濒临消失的语言——意第绪语不仅生动地勾勒出一幅17世纪到20世纪上半叶的犹太世界,并且记述了特定历史时期犹太人对于宗教、伦理以及生命的思考。
辛格因其犹太性被誉为最伟大的美籍犹太作家之一,其作品以弥漫其间的明晰历史感为基础。第一,辛格对作品的背景设置有明显的倾向性,多为第二次世界大战前东欧的犹太人小镇。这种犹太小镇社区与外界隔绝、充满魅力和怀旧情绪。这样偏远的背景不仅让人回想起旧时的贫困、迷信和落后,也引发犹太人对于历史和未来的思考。第二,活跃在辛格小说中的人物多具奇幻色彩而非世俗中的人物。这些拉比、骗子、青楼女子、落魄的知识分子、傻瓜、理性主义者、宿命论者以及无神论者常被(魔鬼、妄想等)迷住心窍。他们是边缘的,神秘的,甚至是远离尘世的。这些性质不仅使波兰犹太人市井生活的全景图更加丰满和逼真,而且迎合了读者对于衰落犹太传统文化的怀旧之情和对于新鲜刺激事物的渴望。
通过背景和人物边缘性,辛格卓有成效地例证并强调了他对犹太民族忧心如煎熬的情结(民族忧煎情节),这与他的创造性思维、艺术风格和作品的含蓄性大有关联。自从上四个世纪以来,基于复杂的政治、宗教和历史原因,犹太人流离失所,生活困苦。历史证明,犹太人具有强烈的不确定意识,而这种意识植根于犹太民族无家无根的过去。因此,我们就可以对犹太人身份从弱化到重新建的变化过程作出解释。移居美国之后,大多数像辛格这样的犹太人陷入了自我身份是犹太人还是美国人的窘境,然而他们既不是完全的犹太人也不是真正的美国人。刻在他们面容上的迷惑揭示了异质文化间的激烈冲突,以及随之而来的边缘感、孤独感和孤立感。传统的价值观被碾成碎片,而新的价值观又尚未建立。怎样生存,甚至是怎样保持自我,成为萦绕在犹太人民心头挥之不去的困惑。独特的民族和个人经历使得犹太人极度渴望被接纳和被承认。只有满足这种情感,才是引导犹太人在一定程度上丢弃失落感、获取归属感、重建生存价值的最适合的法则。
关照到这种必要性,辛格创作每一部作品使用的语言都是意第绪语,一种没有国土没有边界的被遗弃的语言,以不断向世俗提及他的犹太身份并且以他自己的方式捍卫犹太传统。另外,他始终专注于为被放逐的犹太人和不断遭受精神摧残的“精神孤儿”寻找心理上的出口。辛格对人类灵魂进行了检验、拷问和无情批判,这使得很多犹太作家尊其为“精神之父”以表达他们对辛格不懈努力的肯定和欣赏。虽然素材多样,主题各异,辛格的小说无一例外得记录了他对各种学说和观念尝试性的探寻,比较和证明以及实验失败后的挫败、愤怒和悲伤。虽然辛格从未为他小说的犹太主角找到或者指出一条明确的出路,固守犹太道德价值观的倾向成了小说中反复吟唱的原型——小说中满是忏悔者,他们在一时被世俗诱惑和欲望引诱后回归于父辈的信仰,这不但证实了辛格小说从流亡到救赎的不断再现主题,而且印证了他对犹太传统的依恋。
第一章对艾?巴?辛格作了简要介绍,包括他的生平、文学成就及作品评论。
第二章对辛格文学作品中的二义性进行了全面细致的探讨。该章分为五个部分。
在“情节的二义性”一节中,从流亡到救赎以及在这两极间不断游移的原型模式成为大多数故事的主题,文中对该节分四个子节—开端、发展、结局和结论进行讨论。
“视角的二义性”陈述了一个新观点:真理在于对立。这一观点可追溯到十七世纪的伟大哲学家—斯宾诺莎,无疑他对辛格及其作品产生了深远影响。然后我们将探讨对于人类的二义性视角及其含义。
“形象的二义性”将阐述两个著名的人物形象:一个是《卢布林的魔法师》中的雅夏,他虽然被普遍认为是犹太唐璜,但其实是个极具天分和才智的英雄;另一个是《傻瓜吉姆佩尔》,这是辛格的成名作,其中描述了一个具有美德的聪明的傻瓜。
文本的含义因无形而多变,令人难以捉摸。为了达成对文本中貌似矛盾事物的描述的精准和统一,辛格采用了一种写作风格,即奇异风格,以将读者引入一个魔幻世界的维度。通过对奇异风格的定义和分析,我们可以得出此风格的含义并欣赏到文学大师在叙事艺术中的独创性。
第二章的最后一节着力于辛格创作中所使用的语言—一种是意第绪语,它承载了犹太文化中的所有精髓但却在消亡过程中;另一种是英语,它以广泛的阅读群使辛格闻名世界。我们将探讨并得出辛格坚持用意第绪语写作并积极参与到翻译工作的原因。
辛格作品五个层面的二义性现象敦促我们思考其隐匿于现象之后的深层原因,即辛格的民族忧煎情结,这一内容将在第三章中展开。所有的文学作品都是对作者意识形态的反映,而作者总存在于特定时空,特定宗教、社会、民族、个人经历及其他复杂因素的背景下。充分了解写作背景对文学作品的阐释大有裨益。推理的过程将文本与孕育文本的外部世界连接起来。在外部世界中,二义性以及其间的游移随处可见—应该还是不应该信仰上帝?传统与现代化,哪一个更利于保持犹太身份?犹太启蒙主义会带来民族的希望和心灵的宁静吗?如此种种。这些涉及犹太民族未来的重要问题,以及辛格谜一般的经历相互作用,产生、形成并发展了辛格的民族忧煎情节,显现于文本中,熔铸成辛格的“独特性”。
最后一部分得出了结论并说明了意义。文本中的“二义性及游移”现象根源于宏观的历史文化背景。正如哲学家阿?巴特利特?贾马泰伊所说的,“真理也许是…由对立物,由暂时结合在一起的截然相反的事物组成的一种不断变化的混合体”,辛格的作品引领我们思索整个人类的状态:我们可以从辛格那里得出对于犹太民族以及全人类生存状态的观察和判断;并且,新的思考模式会引发对我们所处的外部世界以及需要保持和谐的内部世界的新观点。
总而言之,辛格,这位勇敢而忠诚的战士,为他的民族而上下求索。受民族忧煎情结的驱动,他尝试了每一种可能的途径却每每以失败告终。永不放弃的辛格继续在迥异的民族出路中寻找答案。每一次的失败都会给他带来新的机遇、使他汲取力量和勇气,终将成功的信念是辛格屡败屡战的动力源泉。辛格文本所揭示的终极游移恰恰印证了他救赎苦难的犹太民族的耿耿忠心和坚定信念。
Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991), a Jewish American writer, 1978 Nobel Prize winner for literature By means of a dying language - Yiddish, Singer represents a vanished Jewish world vividly from the seventeenth century to the first half of the twentieth century. He records how the Jews ponder over the issues concerning religion, ethics and life in the given historical period.
Universally regarded as one of the greatest Jewish American writers, Singer gains popular attention throughout the world for his sensitive Jewishness. The common ground of Singer’s works is evident in the historical sense that permeates through Singer's works of literature. Firstly, when it comes to the setting, he has an obvious inclination to set the Polish shtetl, namely Jewish village community as the fictional background in view of its isolation, fascination and reminiscence. The remote setting can not only arouse deep feelings about the poverty, superstition and degradation in the old days, but also can bring certain profound meditation on the past history to illuminate the future way for the Jewish inheritors. Secondly, the characters that frequent Singer's creation are the archetypes of the fantastic world more than that of the mundane one. These rabbis, charlatans, whores, sorehead intellectuals, simpletons, rationalists, fatalists and atheists are obsessed, marginal, mysterious and even unworldly. All these attributes not only play decisive roles in the richness and verisimilitude of the panoramic Polish-Jewish street life, but also cater for the readers’nostalgia for the fading Judaic tradition and culture as well as their aspirations for novelty and excitement.
With the aid of the remoteness embodied in the setting and characters, Singer exemplifies and emphasizes his Jewish national complex fruitfully which has much bearing on his creative thought, artistic style and the implication of his works. The Jews have experienced the bitter living conditions since they are deprived of the homeland for complicated political, religious and historical reasons in the past four centuries. History provides strong evidence to demonstrate the Jews' overwhelming senses of uncertainty stemming from the Jewish homeless and rootless past. It is accountable for their transformative processes from weakening, changing to reestablishing the Jewish identities. After immigrating into America, most Jews such as Singer are too deeply involved in the awkward self-identity to withdraw-both being a Jewish and an American, whereas neither being a thorough Jewish nor a true American. The puzzles carved on their faces express the severe conflicts between two heterogeneous cultures and the accompanying senses of margin, loneliness and exclusion. Traditional values have totally broken into pieces while the new one has not yet come up. How to survive and even to maintain the individuality constitutes the everlasting perplexity that haunts Jews. The particular national and personal experiences make the Jews extremely crave for acceptance and recognition. Only the fulfillment of this emotion could be an appropriate principle to guide them to acquire the sense of belongingness, reestablish the value of existence, and dissolve the sense of loss to a certain extent.
Conforming to this necessity, Singer writes his every piece in Yiddish, a language of exile, without a land, without frontiers, to remind the secular world of his Jewish identity frequently and safeguard the Judaic tradition in his own way. In addition, he has been consistently absorbed in contemplating the psychological outlets for the Jewish exiles and the "spiritual orphans" who suffer from the mental scourges continuously. Accordingly, plenty of Jewish writers title Singer as "Spiritual Father" to express their affirmation and appreciation to his never-ending efforts to examine, interrogate and excoriate the souls of human beings ruthlessly. His novels of various material and themes unanimously record the tentative exploration, comparison and verification among kinds of doctrines and ideas as well as the frustration, grievance and distress after the failure of his experiments. Although Singer never finds out or points out a definite outlet for his Jewish protagonists, the inclination to cling tenaciously to the Jewish moral value is even stereotyped in his fiction, which is filled with penitents who, seduced temporarily by worldly lures and aspirations, return to the faith of their fathers, which demonstrates not only the recurrent theme from exile to redemption in Singer's novels but also his sentiment attachment to the Judaic tradition.
Chapter 1 begins by giving a general idea about I. B. Singer, including biography, achievement in literature and comments.
Chapter 2 undertakes a comprehensive and detailed discussion on the duality in Singer’s literary works. It consists of five parts.
In“Duality in plot”, archetype mode from exile to redemption and the process of transition from one polar to another are shown to be the themes in most stories, which will be clarified in four subparts--starting, developing, ending and a conclusion.
“Duality in vision”sets forth a novel viewpoint: Truth lies in its antithesis. This viewpoint could be traced back to a great philosopher in the seventeenth century—Spinoza, who undoubtedly exerts a considerable influence on Singer and his work. Then we will check duality in vision on human and explore its meaning.
When it comes to“the duality in image”, two renowned images are elucidated: Yasha in“The Magician from Lublin”, though generally considered a Don Juan, actually is a hero with an extraordinary mind and talent; Gimpel the Fool, Singer’s masterpiece which delineates a wise fool with extolled virtue.
While amorphous and transformative meaning of text often resists grasp, in order to achieve a precision and an integration of all the seemingly contradictions in text, Singer employs a genre, namely, grotesque, in his writing which inducts us to a demonic dimension. With explicit definition and an analysis of it, we’ll extract implication from the genre of grotesque and appreciate this master of literature for his ingenuity in narrative art.
The last section of chapter two focuses on languages employed in creation—one is Yiddish, which bears all the essence of Jewish culture but is dying out; the other is English, which wins Singer repute all over the world by its wide readership. The reason why Singer persists in writing in Yiddish and actively participating in the translation work is to be inquired and acquired.
Investigation into five respects of duality in Singer’s work provokes an urge for the underlying causes-- Singer’s complex of anxiety and torment for his nation in Chapter 3. All literature is ideological reflection of the writer, who exists spatial-temporally, under a specific text of religion, society, nation, personal experience and other factors of complexity, upon a full understanding of which, almost everything could be explained or justified. The reasoning process connects text to the outside world which gave birth to the text. Again, duality and swinging state appears in every facet—Should belief or disbelief be held in God? Which is better to keep identity of Jew, tradition or modernization? Will Jewish enlightenment bring hope to the nation as well as to the peace of soul? So on and so forth. These vital questions concerning Jewish future, together with his riddling experience interact with each other, germinate, form and develop the complex of suffering disturbance for the Jewry, which is incarnated in Singer’s works, molding his“distinguishness”.
In the last part, a conclusion is drawn and the point is made. The phenomena of“Duality and Swinging between”in text stem from the larger history-cultural context and just as a philosopher, A. Bartlett Giamatti put it“Truth is perhaps . . . a dynamic compound of opposites, savage contraries for a moment conjoined”, Singer’s works invite us to meditate on the state of human beings as a whole: we may derive from Singer a new insight and penetrating judgment on Jews as well as universal human conditions; also we are conveyed with new modes of thinking and therefore producing novel ideas towards the outside world in which we live and the inside world which we should keep it in harmony.
To summarize, Singer, a brave and faithful warrior, explores and seeks answer for his nation. Impelled by his complex of suffering disturbance for the Jewry, he tries every possible way and almost always ends in failure. Never giving up, singer continues his attempts one way after another which is often poles apart. Each time he fails, he would harvest some new chance and draw strength and courage towards the triumph which provides motivity for his never-ending trials. Therefore, every answer revealed in Singer’s text swings between dualities, which mirrors Singer’s faith and determination to redeem his nation in tribulations.
辛格因其犹太性被誉为最伟大的美籍犹太作家之一,其作品以弥漫其间的明晰历史感为基础。第一,辛格对作品的背景设置有明显的倾向性,多为第二次世界大战前东欧的犹太人小镇。这种犹太小镇社区与外界隔绝、充满魅力和怀旧情绪。这样偏远的背景不仅让人回想起旧时的贫困、迷信和落后,也引发犹太人对于历史和未来的思考。第二,活跃在辛格小说中的人物多具奇幻色彩而非世俗中的人物。这些拉比、骗子、青楼女子、落魄的知识分子、傻瓜、理性主义者、宿命论者以及无神论者常被(魔鬼、妄想等)迷住心窍。他们是边缘的,神秘的,甚至是远离尘世的。这些性质不仅使波兰犹太人市井生活的全景图更加丰满和逼真,而且迎合了读者对于衰落犹太传统文化的怀旧之情和对于新鲜刺激事物的渴望。
通过背景和人物边缘性,辛格卓有成效地例证并强调了他对犹太民族忧心如煎熬的情结(民族忧煎情节),这与他的创造性思维、艺术风格和作品的含蓄性大有关联。自从上四个世纪以来,基于复杂的政治、宗教和历史原因,犹太人流离失所,生活困苦。历史证明,犹太人具有强烈的不确定意识,而这种意识植根于犹太民族无家无根的过去。因此,我们就可以对犹太人身份从弱化到重新建的变化过程作出解释。移居美国之后,大多数像辛格这样的犹太人陷入了自我身份是犹太人还是美国人的窘境,然而他们既不是完全的犹太人也不是真正的美国人。刻在他们面容上的迷惑揭示了异质文化间的激烈冲突,以及随之而来的边缘感、孤独感和孤立感。传统的价值观被碾成碎片,而新的价值观又尚未建立。怎样生存,甚至是怎样保持自我,成为萦绕在犹太人民心头挥之不去的困惑。独特的民族和个人经历使得犹太人极度渴望被接纳和被承认。只有满足这种情感,才是引导犹太人在一定程度上丢弃失落感、获取归属感、重建生存价值的最适合的法则。
关照到这种必要性,辛格创作每一部作品使用的语言都是意第绪语,一种没有国土没有边界的被遗弃的语言,以不断向世俗提及他的犹太身份并且以他自己的方式捍卫犹太传统。另外,他始终专注于为被放逐的犹太人和不断遭受精神摧残的“精神孤儿”寻找心理上的出口。辛格对人类灵魂进行了检验、拷问和无情批判,这使得很多犹太作家尊其为“精神之父”以表达他们对辛格不懈努力的肯定和欣赏。虽然素材多样,主题各异,辛格的小说无一例外得记录了他对各种学说和观念尝试性的探寻,比较和证明以及实验失败后的挫败、愤怒和悲伤。虽然辛格从未为他小说的犹太主角找到或者指出一条明确的出路,固守犹太道德价值观的倾向成了小说中反复吟唱的原型——小说中满是忏悔者,他们在一时被世俗诱惑和欲望引诱后回归于父辈的信仰,这不但证实了辛格小说从流亡到救赎的不断再现主题,而且印证了他对犹太传统的依恋。
第一章对艾?巴?辛格作了简要介绍,包括他的生平、文学成就及作品评论。
第二章对辛格文学作品中的二义性进行了全面细致的探讨。该章分为五个部分。
在“情节的二义性”一节中,从流亡到救赎以及在这两极间不断游移的原型模式成为大多数故事的主题,文中对该节分四个子节—开端、发展、结局和结论进行讨论。
“视角的二义性”陈述了一个新观点:真理在于对立。这一观点可追溯到十七世纪的伟大哲学家—斯宾诺莎,无疑他对辛格及其作品产生了深远影响。然后我们将探讨对于人类的二义性视角及其含义。
“形象的二义性”将阐述两个著名的人物形象:一个是《卢布林的魔法师》中的雅夏,他虽然被普遍认为是犹太唐璜,但其实是个极具天分和才智的英雄;另一个是《傻瓜吉姆佩尔》,这是辛格的成名作,其中描述了一个具有美德的聪明的傻瓜。
文本的含义因无形而多变,令人难以捉摸。为了达成对文本中貌似矛盾事物的描述的精准和统一,辛格采用了一种写作风格,即奇异风格,以将读者引入一个魔幻世界的维度。通过对奇异风格的定义和分析,我们可以得出此风格的含义并欣赏到文学大师在叙事艺术中的独创性。
第二章的最后一节着力于辛格创作中所使用的语言—一种是意第绪语,它承载了犹太文化中的所有精髓但却在消亡过程中;另一种是英语,它以广泛的阅读群使辛格闻名世界。我们将探讨并得出辛格坚持用意第绪语写作并积极参与到翻译工作的原因。
辛格作品五个层面的二义性现象敦促我们思考其隐匿于现象之后的深层原因,即辛格的民族忧煎情结,这一内容将在第三章中展开。所有的文学作品都是对作者意识形态的反映,而作者总存在于特定时空,特定宗教、社会、民族、个人经历及其他复杂因素的背景下。充分了解写作背景对文学作品的阐释大有裨益。推理的过程将文本与孕育文本的外部世界连接起来。在外部世界中,二义性以及其间的游移随处可见—应该还是不应该信仰上帝?传统与现代化,哪一个更利于保持犹太身份?犹太启蒙主义会带来民族的希望和心灵的宁静吗?如此种种。这些涉及犹太民族未来的重要问题,以及辛格谜一般的经历相互作用,产生、形成并发展了辛格的民族忧煎情节,显现于文本中,熔铸成辛格的“独特性”。
最后一部分得出了结论并说明了意义。文本中的“二义性及游移”现象根源于宏观的历史文化背景。正如哲学家阿?巴特利特?贾马泰伊所说的,“真理也许是…由对立物,由暂时结合在一起的截然相反的事物组成的一种不断变化的混合体”,辛格的作品引领我们思索整个人类的状态:我们可以从辛格那里得出对于犹太民族以及全人类生存状态的观察和判断;并且,新的思考模式会引发对我们所处的外部世界以及需要保持和谐的内部世界的新观点。
总而言之,辛格,这位勇敢而忠诚的战士,为他的民族而上下求索。受民族忧煎情结的驱动,他尝试了每一种可能的途径却每每以失败告终。永不放弃的辛格继续在迥异的民族出路中寻找答案。每一次的失败都会给他带来新的机遇、使他汲取力量和勇气,终将成功的信念是辛格屡败屡战的动力源泉。辛格文本所揭示的终极游移恰恰印证了他救赎苦难的犹太民族的耿耿忠心和坚定信念。
Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991), a Jewish American writer, 1978 Nobel Prize winner for literature By means of a dying language - Yiddish, Singer represents a vanished Jewish world vividly from the seventeenth century to the first half of the twentieth century. He records how the Jews ponder over the issues concerning religion, ethics and life in the given historical period.
Universally regarded as one of the greatest Jewish American writers, Singer gains popular attention throughout the world for his sensitive Jewishness. The common ground of Singer’s works is evident in the historical sense that permeates through Singer's works of literature. Firstly, when it comes to the setting, he has an obvious inclination to set the Polish shtetl, namely Jewish village community as the fictional background in view of its isolation, fascination and reminiscence. The remote setting can not only arouse deep feelings about the poverty, superstition and degradation in the old days, but also can bring certain profound meditation on the past history to illuminate the future way for the Jewish inheritors. Secondly, the characters that frequent Singer's creation are the archetypes of the fantastic world more than that of the mundane one. These rabbis, charlatans, whores, sorehead intellectuals, simpletons, rationalists, fatalists and atheists are obsessed, marginal, mysterious and even unworldly. All these attributes not only play decisive roles in the richness and verisimilitude of the panoramic Polish-Jewish street life, but also cater for the readers’nostalgia for the fading Judaic tradition and culture as well as their aspirations for novelty and excitement.
With the aid of the remoteness embodied in the setting and characters, Singer exemplifies and emphasizes his Jewish national complex fruitfully which has much bearing on his creative thought, artistic style and the implication of his works. The Jews have experienced the bitter living conditions since they are deprived of the homeland for complicated political, religious and historical reasons in the past four centuries. History provides strong evidence to demonstrate the Jews' overwhelming senses of uncertainty stemming from the Jewish homeless and rootless past. It is accountable for their transformative processes from weakening, changing to reestablishing the Jewish identities. After immigrating into America, most Jews such as Singer are too deeply involved in the awkward self-identity to withdraw-both being a Jewish and an American, whereas neither being a thorough Jewish nor a true American. The puzzles carved on their faces express the severe conflicts between two heterogeneous cultures and the accompanying senses of margin, loneliness and exclusion. Traditional values have totally broken into pieces while the new one has not yet come up. How to survive and even to maintain the individuality constitutes the everlasting perplexity that haunts Jews. The particular national and personal experiences make the Jews extremely crave for acceptance and recognition. Only the fulfillment of this emotion could be an appropriate principle to guide them to acquire the sense of belongingness, reestablish the value of existence, and dissolve the sense of loss to a certain extent.
Conforming to this necessity, Singer writes his every piece in Yiddish, a language of exile, without a land, without frontiers, to remind the secular world of his Jewish identity frequently and safeguard the Judaic tradition in his own way. In addition, he has been consistently absorbed in contemplating the psychological outlets for the Jewish exiles and the "spiritual orphans" who suffer from the mental scourges continuously. Accordingly, plenty of Jewish writers title Singer as "Spiritual Father" to express their affirmation and appreciation to his never-ending efforts to examine, interrogate and excoriate the souls of human beings ruthlessly. His novels of various material and themes unanimously record the tentative exploration, comparison and verification among kinds of doctrines and ideas as well as the frustration, grievance and distress after the failure of his experiments. Although Singer never finds out or points out a definite outlet for his Jewish protagonists, the inclination to cling tenaciously to the Jewish moral value is even stereotyped in his fiction, which is filled with penitents who, seduced temporarily by worldly lures and aspirations, return to the faith of their fathers, which demonstrates not only the recurrent theme from exile to redemption in Singer's novels but also his sentiment attachment to the Judaic tradition.
Chapter 1 begins by giving a general idea about I. B. Singer, including biography, achievement in literature and comments.
Chapter 2 undertakes a comprehensive and detailed discussion on the duality in Singer’s literary works. It consists of five parts.
In“Duality in plot”, archetype mode from exile to redemption and the process of transition from one polar to another are shown to be the themes in most stories, which will be clarified in four subparts--starting, developing, ending and a conclusion.
“Duality in vision”sets forth a novel viewpoint: Truth lies in its antithesis. This viewpoint could be traced back to a great philosopher in the seventeenth century—Spinoza, who undoubtedly exerts a considerable influence on Singer and his work. Then we will check duality in vision on human and explore its meaning.
When it comes to“the duality in image”, two renowned images are elucidated: Yasha in“The Magician from Lublin”, though generally considered a Don Juan, actually is a hero with an extraordinary mind and talent; Gimpel the Fool, Singer’s masterpiece which delineates a wise fool with extolled virtue.
While amorphous and transformative meaning of text often resists grasp, in order to achieve a precision and an integration of all the seemingly contradictions in text, Singer employs a genre, namely, grotesque, in his writing which inducts us to a demonic dimension. With explicit definition and an analysis of it, we’ll extract implication from the genre of grotesque and appreciate this master of literature for his ingenuity in narrative art.
The last section of chapter two focuses on languages employed in creation—one is Yiddish, which bears all the essence of Jewish culture but is dying out; the other is English, which wins Singer repute all over the world by its wide readership. The reason why Singer persists in writing in Yiddish and actively participating in the translation work is to be inquired and acquired.
Investigation into five respects of duality in Singer’s work provokes an urge for the underlying causes-- Singer’s complex of anxiety and torment for his nation in Chapter 3. All literature is ideological reflection of the writer, who exists spatial-temporally, under a specific text of religion, society, nation, personal experience and other factors of complexity, upon a full understanding of which, almost everything could be explained or justified. The reasoning process connects text to the outside world which gave birth to the text. Again, duality and swinging state appears in every facet—Should belief or disbelief be held in God? Which is better to keep identity of Jew, tradition or modernization? Will Jewish enlightenment bring hope to the nation as well as to the peace of soul? So on and so forth. These vital questions concerning Jewish future, together with his riddling experience interact with each other, germinate, form and develop the complex of suffering disturbance for the Jewry, which is incarnated in Singer’s works, molding his“distinguishness”.
In the last part, a conclusion is drawn and the point is made. The phenomena of“Duality and Swinging between”in text stem from the larger history-cultural context and just as a philosopher, A. Bartlett Giamatti put it“Truth is perhaps . . . a dynamic compound of opposites, savage contraries for a moment conjoined”, Singer’s works invite us to meditate on the state of human beings as a whole: we may derive from Singer a new insight and penetrating judgment on Jews as well as universal human conditions; also we are conveyed with new modes of thinking and therefore producing novel ideas towards the outside world in which we live and the inside world which we should keep it in harmony.
To summarize, Singer, a brave and faithful warrior, explores and seeks answer for his nation. Impelled by his complex of suffering disturbance for the Jewry, he tries every possible way and almost always ends in failure. Never giving up, singer continues his attempts one way after another which is often poles apart. Each time he fails, he would harvest some new chance and draw strength and courage towards the triumph which provides motivity for his never-ending trials. Therefore, every answer revealed in Singer’s text swings between dualities, which mirrors Singer’s faith and determination to redeem his nation in tribulations.
引文
1 http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/news/press/2004/singer.html
2 (1). Gimpel the Fool to The Letter Writer. 789 pages. (2). A Friend of Kafka to Passions. 856 pages. (3). One Night in Brazil to The Death of Methuselah. 899 pages.
14 Singer Isaac Bashevis. The Family Moskat. New York: Farrar, 1965. P.26
15 ibid. P.607
16 Singer Isaac Bashevis. Shosha. New York: Farrar, 1978. P.269
17 Singer Isaac Bashevis. A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories. New York: Farrar, 1973. A Crown of Feathers P.30
18 Singer Isaac Bashevis. Enemies, A Love Story. New York: Farrar, 1972. P.53
19 Singer Isaac Bashevis. Shosha. New York: Farrar, 1978. P.34
20 Singer Isaac Bashevis. Shosha. New York: Farrar, 1978. P.277
21 Isaiah: (8th century BC) in the Jewish and Christian religions, a Hebrew prophet who said that God would send a messiah to save the Jews. The Book of Isaiah in the Old Testament of the Bible contains his prophecies.
22 http://www.holybible.or.kr/BIBLE Isaiah 59 [KJV] 9-10
23 Singer Isaac Bashevis. Passions. New York: Farrar, 1975. P.27
24 ibid. P.30
25 Camus Albert. "An Absurd Reasoning." The Myth of Sisyphus. New York: Random, 1955. P.10
26 Singer Isaac Bashevis. Gimpel the Fool and Other Stories New York: Farrar, 1988 P.24
27 Singer Isaac Bashevis. Short Friday and Other Stories Penguin books: 1988 P.17
28 http://www.stevedenning.com/Arabian_Nights.html:Scheherazade or The 1001 Arabian Nights is a cornucopia of storytelling - one of the world's finest - as the beautiful young Scheherazade tries to stave off nightly threat of execution by telling a story so enticing that her would-be-executioner husband so desires to hear the end of the story that he postpones the execution till the succeeding night.
29 Singer Isaac Bashevis. A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories. New York: Farrar, 1973. A Crown of Feathers P.320
30 Singer Isaac Bashevis. Passions. 1975 P.25
31 Singer Isaac Bashevis. Gimpel the Fool and Other Stories New York: Farrar, 1988 P.77
32 Telushkin, Dvorah. Master of Dream: A Memoir of Isaac Bashevis Singer. New York,1997 P.333
36 Singer Isaac Bashevis. Gimpel the Fool and Other Stories New York: Farrar, 1988 P.24
37 Wisse Ruth R. The Schlemiel as Modern Hero. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1971 P.60
39 Malin,Irving. Critical Views of Isaac Bashevis Singer, New York University Press 1969 P.118
40 Hadda, Janet. Isaac Bashvis Singer: A life, Oxford University Press, 2003. P.133
41 Burgin, Richard. Conversations with Isaac Bashevis Singer, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1986. P.512
42 Morris Holden,“Dr. Fischelson’s Miracle Duality and Vision in Singer’s Fiction,”in the Achievement of Issac Bashvis Singer. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969 P.31
43 Kresh, Paul. Issac Bashevis SingerL The magician of West 86th Street, New York: The Dial Press P.238
44 Charles A, Madson, Yiddish literature: Its scope and Major Writers, New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., Inc., 1968, P.479-499
45 http://www.allabouttruth.org/10-commandments.htm: The 10 Commandments are found in the Bible's Old Testament at Exodus, Chapter 20. They were given directly by God to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai after He had delivered them from slavery in Egypt, the EIGHTH of which is :“You shall not steal.”
46 Linzer, Norman. Ethical Dilemmas in Jewish Communal Service, KTAV Publishing House, Inc. 1996.
47 http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/HEBREWS/TORAH.HTM: The foundation of Hebrew and Jewish religion, thought, law, and society is the Torah. The Torah, consisting of five books, lays down the central events of Hebrew history: the beginning of time, the election of Abraham, the history of the patriarchs, and the monumental history of the deliverance of the Hebrews from Egypt under the leadership of Moses. The Torah overwhelmingly concerns thislast historical event, the event that gave the Hebrews a religion, a nation, and an identity: the "bene yisrael," the "children of Israel." The migration from Egypt involved two crucial events: the introduction to Yahweh on Mount Sinai and the receiving of Yahweh's religious and social instructions.
48 Kresh, Paul. Isaac Bashvis Singer: The Magician of West 86th Street, New York: The Dial Press, 1979.
49 Singer Issac Bashevis: Love and Exile. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1984. P.247
50 http://www.sholom-aleichem.org/ Sholom Aleichem, Yiddish literature's most beloved author, was one of the very few modern writers who speaks for an entire people. Born in Russia in 1859 as Solomon Rabinovitz, he died in New York in 1916. He created many memorable characters, including Tevye (who you may know from the adaptation of his work in "Fiddler on the Roof"), Motel "The Cantor's Son", Menachem-Mendl and many others.
51 Singer Isaac B. Short Friday. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1964. P.57
52 ibid. P.82
59 See, e.g., I. Saposnik, "Translating The Family Moskat: The Metamorphosis of a Novel", Yiddish 1, no. 2, (1973 ): 26-37;
60 E. Alexander, Isaac Bashevis Singer: A Study of the Short Fiction (Boston, 1990 ).
61 See especially works by Chone Shmeruk and David Neal Miller.
64 Irving Saposnik "Translating The Family Moskat: The Metamorphosis of a Novel", Yiddish 1, no. 2, (1973 ): p. 26
66 Singer I. B., "Joseph and Koza", in Stories for Children (New York, 1985), p. 140.
67 David Roskies discusses in his article the story "Zeydlus der ershter" and its English version, "Zeidlus the Pope," pointing out the fact that a number of contemptuous expressions referring to Christianity were neutralized in the English translation. As a result, the main concept of the story underwent substantial transformation. One of the reasons for these changes, apart from the fact that English is a Christian language in which some contemptuous Yiddish terms do not have close equivalents, is, according to Roskies, Singer's changed attitude toward goyim, which could be observed in the fifties. It seems to me, however, that the main reason for these changes is taking into consideration the feelings of the English addressee.
68 The Yiddish version was published in Di goldene keyt 61 (1967), and the English one in Old Love (New York, 1979).
74 Singer Issac Bashevis: In my Father’s Court, P.188
75 Hadda, Janet. Issac Bashevis Singer: A life. London: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1997 P.30
76 ibid: P.30
80 Friedman, Lawrence S. Understanding Isaac Bashvis Singer. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press 1998: P.3
81 Hadda, Janet. Issac Bashevis Singer: A Life. London: The university of Wisconsin Press, 1997 P.45
82 Singer, Issac Bashevis. Enemies, A Love Story . New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1972 P.43
83 ibid. P.184
84 ibid. P.211
85 ibid. P.146
86 http://www.answers.com/topic/collective-unconscious: In Jungian psychology, a part of the unconscious mind, shared by a society, a people, or all humankind, that is the product of ancestral experience and contains such concepts as science, religion, and morality.
87 Hadda, Janet. Issac Bashevis Singer: A Life. London: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1997. P.52
88 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Zionism/zionism.html the national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel, advocated, from its inception, tangible as well as spiritual aims. Jews of all persuasions, left and right, religious and secular, joined to form the Zionist movement and worked together toward these goals. Disagreements led to rifts, but ultimately, the common goal of a Jewish state in its ancient homeland was attained. The term "Zionism" was coined in 1890 by Nathan Birnbaum.
89 Nobel Lecture. New York: Farra, Straus & Giroux, 1979.
90 Singer Isaac Bashevis: Short Friday and Other Stories, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1964 P.202
91 http://www.britannica.com/the affair of Dreyfus:French army officer whose trial for treason began a 12-year controversy, known as the Dreyfus Affair, that deeply marked the political and social history of the French Third Republic.
92 Singer Isaac Bashevis: The Manor, New York: Farrar, Straus & Gioux, 1967 P.40
93 Tyson, Lois“New Historicism.”Selective Readings in 20th Century Western Critical Theory. ed. Zhang Zhongzai. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2002 P.618
94 Unger, Leonard. ed. American writers IV. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974 P.2
95 Friedman, Lawrence S.: Understanding Isaac Bashvis Singer. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988 P.4
96 Unger, Leonard. ed. American Writers IV. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974 P.5
97 ibid P.5
1. Singer Isaac Bashevis, and Richard Burgin. Conversations with Isaac Bashevis Singer. New York: Doubleday, 1985.
2. Mintz Samuel. Spinoza and Spinozism in Singer's Shorter Fiction. Studies in American Jewish Literature 1, New York: Doubleday, 1981.
3. Singer Isaac Bashevis. Passions. New York: Farrar, 1975.
4. Camus Albert.“An Absurd Reasoning”The Myth of Sisyphus. New York: Random, 1955.
5. Singer Isaac Bashevis. The Family Moskat. New York: Farrar, 1965.
6. Singer Isaac Bashevis. Shosha. New York: Farrar, 1978.
7. Singer Isaac Bashevis. A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories. New York: Farrar, 1973.
8. Singer Isaac Bashevis. Enemies, A Love Story. New York: Farrar, 1972.
9. Camus Albert. "An Absurd Reasoning." The Myth of Sisyphus. New York: Random, 1955.
10. Singer Isaac Bashevis. Gimpel the Fool and Other Stories New York: Farrar, 1988.
11. Singer Isaac Bashevis. Short Friday and Other Stories Penguin books: 1988.
12. Telushkin, Dvorah. Master of Dream: A Memoir of Isaac Bashevis Singer. New York,1997.
13. Yovel, Yirmiyahu (1989) Spinoza and other Heretics, vol. I: The Marrano of Reason; vol. II: The Adventures of Immanence, Princeton:Princeton University Press.
14. Wisse Ruth R. The Schlemiel as Modern Hero. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 197.
15. Malin,Irving. Critical Views of Isaac Bashevis Singer, New York University Press 1969.
16. Hadda, Janet. Isaac Bashvis Singer: A life, Oxford University Press, 2003.
17. Burgin, Richard. Conversations with Isaac Bashevis Singer, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1986.
18. Morris Holden,“Dr. Fischelson’s Miracle Duality and Vision in Singer’s Fiction,”in the Achievement of Issac Bashvis Singer. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969.
19. Kresh, Paul. Issac Bashevis SingerL The magician of West 86th Street, New York: The Dial Press.
20. Charles A, Madson, Yiddish literature: Its scope and Major Writers, New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., Inc., 1968.
21. Linzer, Norman. Ethical Dilemmas in Jewish Communal Service, KTAV Publishing House, Inc. 1996.
22. Singer Issac Bashevis: Love and Exile. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1984.
23. Singer Isaac Bashevis: Short Friday. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1964.
24. Kenneth Katzner: The Languages of the World published in the USA and Canada 2002 by Routledge.
25. I. Saposnik, "Translating The Family Moskat: The Metamorphosis of a Novel", Yiddish 1, no. 2, 1973.
26. E. Alexander: Isaac Bashevis Singer: A Study of the Short Fiction, Boston, 1990.
27. Shmeruk, "The Use of Monologue as a Narrative Technique in the Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer".
28. Irving Saposnik "Translating The Family Moskat: The Metamorphosis of a Novel", Yiddish 1, no. 2, (1973 ): p. 26
29. G. Skotnicka, "Od kronik do ksia?ek dla dzieci" From chronicles to children's books, Akcent 4 (1984): 106-13.
30. Singer Issac Bashevis: "Joseph and Koza", in Stories for Children, New York, 1985.
31. S. I. Mintz, "Spinoza and Spinozism in Singer's Shorter Fiction" in Studies in American Jewish Literature, p. 75.
32. Nobel Lecture. New York: Farra, Straus & Giroux, 1979.
33. Singer Issac Bashevis: In my Father’s Court.
34. Hadda, Janet. Issac Bashevis Singer: A life. London: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1997.
35. Friedman, Lawrence S. Understanding Isaac Bashvis Singer. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press 1998.
36. Singer Isaac Bashevis: The Manor, New York: Farrar, Straus & Gioux, 1967.
37. Tyson, Lois“New Historicism.”Selective Readings in 20th Century Western Critical Theory. ed. Zhang Zhongzai. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2002.
38. Unger, Leonard. ed. American writers IV. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974.
2 (1). Gimpel the Fool to The Letter Writer. 789 pages. (2). A Friend of Kafka to Passions. 856 pages. (3). One Night in Brazil to The Death of Methuselah. 899 pages.
14 Singer Isaac Bashevis. The Family Moskat. New York: Farrar, 1965. P.26
15 ibid. P.607
16 Singer Isaac Bashevis. Shosha. New York: Farrar, 1978. P.269
17 Singer Isaac Bashevis. A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories. New York: Farrar, 1973. A Crown of Feathers P.30
18 Singer Isaac Bashevis. Enemies, A Love Story. New York: Farrar, 1972. P.53
19 Singer Isaac Bashevis. Shosha. New York: Farrar, 1978. P.34
20 Singer Isaac Bashevis. Shosha. New York: Farrar, 1978. P.277
21 Isaiah: (8th century BC) in the Jewish and Christian religions, a Hebrew prophet who said that God would send a messiah to save the Jews. The Book of Isaiah in the Old Testament of the Bible contains his prophecies.
22 http://www.holybible.or.kr/BIBLE Isaiah 59 [KJV] 9-10
23 Singer Isaac Bashevis. Passions. New York: Farrar, 1975. P.27
24 ibid. P.30
25 Camus Albert. "An Absurd Reasoning." The Myth of Sisyphus. New York: Random, 1955. P.10
26 Singer Isaac Bashevis. Gimpel the Fool and Other Stories New York: Farrar, 1988 P.24
27 Singer Isaac Bashevis. Short Friday and Other Stories Penguin books: 1988 P.17
28 http://www.stevedenning.com/Arabian_Nights.html:Scheherazade or The 1001 Arabian Nights is a cornucopia of storytelling - one of the world's finest - as the beautiful young Scheherazade tries to stave off nightly threat of execution by telling a story so enticing that her would-be-executioner husband so desires to hear the end of the story that he postpones the execution till the succeeding night.
29 Singer Isaac Bashevis. A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories. New York: Farrar, 1973. A Crown of Feathers P.320
30 Singer Isaac Bashevis. Passions. 1975 P.25
31 Singer Isaac Bashevis. Gimpel the Fool and Other Stories New York: Farrar, 1988 P.77
32 Telushkin, Dvorah. Master of Dream: A Memoir of Isaac Bashevis Singer. New York,1997 P.333
36 Singer Isaac Bashevis. Gimpel the Fool and Other Stories New York: Farrar, 1988 P.24
37 Wisse Ruth R. The Schlemiel as Modern Hero. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1971 P.60
39 Malin,Irving. Critical Views of Isaac Bashevis Singer, New York University Press 1969 P.118
40 Hadda, Janet. Isaac Bashvis Singer: A life, Oxford University Press, 2003. P.133
41 Burgin, Richard. Conversations with Isaac Bashevis Singer, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1986. P.512
42 Morris Holden,“Dr. Fischelson’s Miracle Duality and Vision in Singer’s Fiction,”in the Achievement of Issac Bashvis Singer. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969 P.31
43 Kresh, Paul. Issac Bashevis SingerL The magician of West 86th Street, New York: The Dial Press P.238
44 Charles A, Madson, Yiddish literature: Its scope and Major Writers, New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., Inc., 1968, P.479-499
45 http://www.allabouttruth.org/10-commandments.htm: The 10 Commandments are found in the Bible's Old Testament at Exodus, Chapter 20. They were given directly by God to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai after He had delivered them from slavery in Egypt, the EIGHTH of which is :“You shall not steal.”
46 Linzer, Norman. Ethical Dilemmas in Jewish Communal Service, KTAV Publishing House, Inc. 1996.
47 http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/HEBREWS/TORAH.HTM: The foundation of Hebrew and Jewish religion, thought, law, and society is the Torah. The Torah, consisting of five books, lays down the central events of Hebrew history: the beginning of time, the election of Abraham, the history of the patriarchs, and the monumental history of the deliverance of the Hebrews from Egypt under the leadership of Moses. The Torah overwhelmingly concerns thislast historical event, the event that gave the Hebrews a religion, a nation, and an identity: the "bene yisrael," the "children of Israel." The migration from Egypt involved two crucial events: the introduction to Yahweh on Mount Sinai and the receiving of Yahweh's religious and social instructions.
48 Kresh, Paul. Isaac Bashvis Singer: The Magician of West 86th Street, New York: The Dial Press, 1979.
49 Singer Issac Bashevis: Love and Exile. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1984. P.247
50 http://www.sholom-aleichem.org/ Sholom Aleichem, Yiddish literature's most beloved author, was one of the very few modern writers who speaks for an entire people. Born in Russia in 1859 as Solomon Rabinovitz, he died in New York in 1916. He created many memorable characters, including Tevye (who you may know from the adaptation of his work in "Fiddler on the Roof"), Motel "The Cantor's Son", Menachem-Mendl and many others.
51 Singer Isaac B. Short Friday. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1964. P.57
52 ibid. P.82
59 See, e.g., I. Saposnik, "Translating The Family Moskat: The Metamorphosis of a Novel", Yiddish 1, no. 2, (1973 ): 26-37;
60 E. Alexander, Isaac Bashevis Singer: A Study of the Short Fiction (Boston, 1990 ).
61 See especially works by Chone Shmeruk and David Neal Miller.
64 Irving Saposnik "Translating The Family Moskat: The Metamorphosis of a Novel", Yiddish 1, no. 2, (1973 ): p. 26
66 Singer I. B., "Joseph and Koza", in Stories for Children (New York, 1985), p. 140.
67 David Roskies discusses in his article the story "Zeydlus der ershter" and its English version, "Zeidlus the Pope," pointing out the fact that a number of contemptuous expressions referring to Christianity were neutralized in the English translation. As a result, the main concept of the story underwent substantial transformation. One of the reasons for these changes, apart from the fact that English is a Christian language in which some contemptuous Yiddish terms do not have close equivalents, is, according to Roskies, Singer's changed attitude toward goyim, which could be observed in the fifties. It seems to me, however, that the main reason for these changes is taking into consideration the feelings of the English addressee.
68 The Yiddish version was published in Di goldene keyt 61 (1967), and the English one in Old Love (New York, 1979).
74 Singer Issac Bashevis: In my Father’s Court, P.188
75 Hadda, Janet. Issac Bashevis Singer: A life. London: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1997 P.30
76 ibid: P.30
80 Friedman, Lawrence S. Understanding Isaac Bashvis Singer. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press 1998: P.3
81 Hadda, Janet. Issac Bashevis Singer: A Life. London: The university of Wisconsin Press, 1997 P.45
82 Singer, Issac Bashevis. Enemies, A Love Story . New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1972 P.43
83 ibid. P.184
84 ibid. P.211
85 ibid. P.146
86 http://www.answers.com/topic/collective-unconscious: In Jungian psychology, a part of the unconscious mind, shared by a society, a people, or all humankind, that is the product of ancestral experience and contains such concepts as science, religion, and morality.
87 Hadda, Janet. Issac Bashevis Singer: A Life. London: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1997. P.52
88 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Zionism/zionism.html the national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel, advocated, from its inception, tangible as well as spiritual aims. Jews of all persuasions, left and right, religious and secular, joined to form the Zionist movement and worked together toward these goals. Disagreements led to rifts, but ultimately, the common goal of a Jewish state in its ancient homeland was attained. The term "Zionism" was coined in 1890 by Nathan Birnbaum.
89 Nobel Lecture. New York: Farra, Straus & Giroux, 1979.
90 Singer Isaac Bashevis: Short Friday and Other Stories, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1964 P.202
91 http://www.britannica.com/the affair of Dreyfus:French army officer whose trial for treason began a 12-year controversy, known as the Dreyfus Affair, that deeply marked the political and social history of the French Third Republic.
92 Singer Isaac Bashevis: The Manor, New York: Farrar, Straus & Gioux, 1967 P.40
93 Tyson, Lois“New Historicism.”Selective Readings in 20th Century Western Critical Theory. ed. Zhang Zhongzai. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2002 P.618
94 Unger, Leonard. ed. American writers IV. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974 P.2
95 Friedman, Lawrence S.: Understanding Isaac Bashvis Singer. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988 P.4
96 Unger, Leonard. ed. American Writers IV. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974 P.5
97 ibid P.5
1. Singer Isaac Bashevis, and Richard Burgin. Conversations with Isaac Bashevis Singer. New York: Doubleday, 1985.
2. Mintz Samuel. Spinoza and Spinozism in Singer's Shorter Fiction. Studies in American Jewish Literature 1, New York: Doubleday, 1981.
3. Singer Isaac Bashevis. Passions. New York: Farrar, 1975.
4. Camus Albert.“An Absurd Reasoning”The Myth of Sisyphus. New York: Random, 1955.
5. Singer Isaac Bashevis. The Family Moskat. New York: Farrar, 1965.
6. Singer Isaac Bashevis. Shosha. New York: Farrar, 1978.
7. Singer Isaac Bashevis. A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories. New York: Farrar, 1973.
8. Singer Isaac Bashevis. Enemies, A Love Story. New York: Farrar, 1972.
9. Camus Albert. "An Absurd Reasoning." The Myth of Sisyphus. New York: Random, 1955.
10. Singer Isaac Bashevis. Gimpel the Fool and Other Stories New York: Farrar, 1988.
11. Singer Isaac Bashevis. Short Friday and Other Stories Penguin books: 1988.
12. Telushkin, Dvorah. Master of Dream: A Memoir of Isaac Bashevis Singer. New York,1997.
13. Yovel, Yirmiyahu (1989) Spinoza and other Heretics, vol. I: The Marrano of Reason; vol. II: The Adventures of Immanence, Princeton:Princeton University Press.
14. Wisse Ruth R. The Schlemiel as Modern Hero. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 197.
15. Malin,Irving. Critical Views of Isaac Bashevis Singer, New York University Press 1969.
16. Hadda, Janet. Isaac Bashvis Singer: A life, Oxford University Press, 2003.
17. Burgin, Richard. Conversations with Isaac Bashevis Singer, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1986.
18. Morris Holden,“Dr. Fischelson’s Miracle Duality and Vision in Singer’s Fiction,”in the Achievement of Issac Bashvis Singer. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969.
19. Kresh, Paul. Issac Bashevis SingerL The magician of West 86th Street, New York: The Dial Press.
20. Charles A, Madson, Yiddish literature: Its scope and Major Writers, New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., Inc., 1968.
21. Linzer, Norman. Ethical Dilemmas in Jewish Communal Service, KTAV Publishing House, Inc. 1996.
22. Singer Issac Bashevis: Love and Exile. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1984.
23. Singer Isaac Bashevis: Short Friday. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1964.
24. Kenneth Katzner: The Languages of the World published in the USA and Canada 2002 by Routledge.
25. I. Saposnik, "Translating The Family Moskat: The Metamorphosis of a Novel", Yiddish 1, no. 2, 1973.
26. E. Alexander: Isaac Bashevis Singer: A Study of the Short Fiction, Boston, 1990.
27. Shmeruk, "The Use of Monologue as a Narrative Technique in the Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer".
28. Irving Saposnik "Translating The Family Moskat: The Metamorphosis of a Novel", Yiddish 1, no. 2, (1973 ): p. 26
29. G. Skotnicka, "Od kronik do ksia?ek dla dzieci" From chronicles to children's books, Akcent 4 (1984): 106-13.
30. Singer Issac Bashevis: "Joseph and Koza", in Stories for Children, New York, 1985.
31. S. I. Mintz, "Spinoza and Spinozism in Singer's Shorter Fiction" in Studies in American Jewish Literature, p. 75.
32. Nobel Lecture. New York: Farra, Straus & Giroux, 1979.
33. Singer Issac Bashevis: In my Father’s Court.
34. Hadda, Janet. Issac Bashevis Singer: A life. London: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1997.
35. Friedman, Lawrence S. Understanding Isaac Bashvis Singer. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press 1998.
36. Singer Isaac Bashevis: The Manor, New York: Farrar, Straus & Gioux, 1967.
37. Tyson, Lois“New Historicism.”Selective Readings in 20th Century Western Critical Theory. ed. Zhang Zhongzai. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2002.
38. Unger, Leonard. ed. American writers IV. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974.