Papers by Dina Berdichevsky
Dibur Literary Journal, 2020
The date in the article's title hints at Virginia Woolf 's famous assertion that in this month "t... more The date in the article's title hints at Virginia Woolf 's famous assertion that in this month "the human character had changed," a change that, according to Woolf, altered the forms of literary representation of subjective experience and marked the rise of twentieth-century modernist literature. Interestingly, in this month or in the month preceding it, the prominent Hebrew writer Y. H. Brenner published his Hebrew novella Nerves.
I argue that in the Jewish Hebrew context December 1910 marked precisely the decline of the early Hebrew modernist turn, parallel to the establishment of a new literary center for Hebrew literature in Eretz Yisrael. I first shed light on the story’s complex treatment of the figure of “nerves” and argue that through this figure Brenner’s story articulates the irresolvable tension between two forms of life as two forms of representation. I then contextualize the tensions inherent to the historical and poetic figure of nerves within the wider discussion of the process of decline of Hebrew modernist poetics at the very moment in which the language performed its national “return” to its native soil.
Journal of Comparative Literature 73:1, 2021
The article explores the moment of “invention” of the Hebrew mood. Around the year 1900 a new exp... more The article explores the moment of “invention” of the Hebrew mood. Around the year 1900 a new expression for mood appeared in Hebrew: matsav ruah. The articulation of a new linguistic expression was paralleled by the rise of an original atmospheric prose, mood prose, in Hebrew. By analyzing these parallel events, the article suggests that the matsav ruah of the early 1900s was a new form of self-experience and that this new form stimulated original poetic language created by a cohort of Hebrew, East European writers, including Yosef Hayim Brenner, Uri Nissan Gnessin, and others. I suggest that, with mood, Hebrew prose figuratively stretched language itself, giving form to a new sense of “being there.” Furthermore, this poetics of mood offered authors an alternative to psychological realist prose and to the fixed subject position it implied. Thus, Hebrew phrasing and poetics of mood offer a potent concept for the analysis of epistemo- logical foundations of early twentieth-century modernism in Hebrew literature while drawing an outline for a wider, comparative view on early twentieth-century European modernism in light of the concept of mood.
מחקרי ירושלים בספרות עברית ל, 2019
The essay focuses on the prose of Y. H. Brenner written during and following his London period of... more The essay focuses on the prose of Y. H. Brenner written during and following his London period of 1904-1907. It discusses the historical upheavals in Russia of the early twentieth century and the mass Jewish migration from Russia to Western Europe during these years - a trajectory in which London became a central juncture - and their influence on the process of the rapid modernization of Hebrew literature. I argue that in the history of Hebrew literature the London period marked the formation of a new aesthetic conception of the realm of the literary. The concept of aesthetic autonomy was first formulated at that time, and the literary space is reimagined and depicted in new ways, no longer as the representation or continuation of historical-social reality but rather as a fundamentally other dimension, foreign to history and society. In Brenner’s works this process is made strongly evident through new representations of seeing and visibility. Similar to the way that migrants, refugees and in infiltrators struggle to survive in the situation of mass migration by hiding and sneaking out, in Brenner’s prose writings itself receives the image of a disobedient subject. The literary text and its protagonists constantly seek to hide their trails and to dim the eld of vision. Thus, Brenner’s new literary techniques of distorted and darkened visions lead to the earliest expressions of Hebrew literary modernism associated with the essential solitude of writing. Discussing the changes that take place on the poetical level in their discursive and historical context reveals some of the existential and political foundations of the emerging Jewish modernist language of the early twentieth century.
אות: כתב עת לספרות ולתיאוריה, 2018
המאמר דן ב"מכאן ומכאן" של י"ח ברנר (1911) כרומן מסאי מודרניסטי. במאמר אני מבקשת לעמוד על יסודותיו... more המאמר דן ב"מכאן ומכאן" של י"ח ברנר (1911) כרומן מסאי מודרניסטי. במאמר אני מבקשת לעמוד על יסודותיו של החידוש הפואטי והפילוסופי של "מכאן ומכאן", ולהציע בתוך כך בחינה היסטורית ועקרונית של הקאנוניזציה של ברנר כריאליסט דווקא, תהליך שהוא עקרוני להבנת ההיסטוריה של הספרות העברית המודרנית. בחלק הראשון של המאמר אני דנה בתקבלות של "מכאן ומכאן" בתוך ההקשר הרחב של הדיון על הריאליות והריאליזם של ברנר. החלק השני מציע מפתח פרשני להבנת "מכאן ומכאן" כרומן המסאִי הראשון בספרות העברית המודרנית, כרומן שסימן רגע מכריע בתולדות המחשבה על מקורה, על תכליתה ועל מהותה האונטולוגית של היצירה הספרותית.
Prooftexts, Volume 36, Numbers 1-2., 2017
In this article I discuss the late essayistic prose of two Hebrew writers, essayists, and readers... more In this article I discuss the late essayistic prose of two Hebrew writers, essayists, and readers of world literature—Leah Goldberg and Shlomo Grodzensky. Both of these writers belonged to a distinct generation of intellectuals in Hebrew literature. Grodzensky named this generation “the children of World War I.” This article focuses on their essays written during the 1960s, as they became the last representatives of world literature in the Israeli-Hebrew literary republic. Their work as unique writers and as members of their literary generation represented a critical
moment in the history of Hebrew modern literature, a moment of renegotiation of the boundaries of national literature in a multilingual world. Goldberg’s and Grodzensky’s essayistic prose showed a new and empathic relation of the Hebrew text toward foreign words. Furthermore, a central claim in this article is that these writers’ self-estranged mode of mediation modestly posed a question mark over the very notion of a Jewish national unified native language.
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Papers by Dina Berdichevsky
I argue that in the Jewish Hebrew context December 1910 marked precisely the decline of the early Hebrew modernist turn, parallel to the establishment of a new literary center for Hebrew literature in Eretz Yisrael. I first shed light on the story’s complex treatment of the figure of “nerves” and argue that through this figure Brenner’s story articulates the irresolvable tension between two forms of life as two forms of representation. I then contextualize the tensions inherent to the historical and poetic figure of nerves within the wider discussion of the process of decline of Hebrew modernist poetics at the very moment in which the language performed its national “return” to its native soil.
moment in the history of Hebrew modern literature, a moment of renegotiation of the boundaries of national literature in a multilingual world. Goldberg’s and Grodzensky’s essayistic prose showed a new and empathic relation of the Hebrew text toward foreign words. Furthermore, a central claim in this article is that these writers’ self-estranged mode of mediation modestly posed a question mark over the very notion of a Jewish national unified native language.
I argue that in the Jewish Hebrew context December 1910 marked precisely the decline of the early Hebrew modernist turn, parallel to the establishment of a new literary center for Hebrew literature in Eretz Yisrael. I first shed light on the story’s complex treatment of the figure of “nerves” and argue that through this figure Brenner’s story articulates the irresolvable tension between two forms of life as two forms of representation. I then contextualize the tensions inherent to the historical and poetic figure of nerves within the wider discussion of the process of decline of Hebrew modernist poetics at the very moment in which the language performed its national “return” to its native soil.
moment in the history of Hebrew modern literature, a moment of renegotiation of the boundaries of national literature in a multilingual world. Goldberg’s and Grodzensky’s essayistic prose showed a new and empathic relation of the Hebrew text toward foreign words. Furthermore, a central claim in this article is that these writers’ self-estranged mode of mediation modestly posed a question mark over the very notion of a Jewish national unified native language.