Isaac Bashevis Singer Summary

Singer, Isaac Bashevis (1904-1991) Singer is considered almost by unanimous consent to be the greatest postwar writer of Yiddish literature. Born on July 14, 1904 in Leoncin, Poland, child of a Chasid... Read more

Biography EssayIn his novels and short stories, Isaac Bashevis Singer has created a world of ghosts, dybbuks, witches, and demons, a world of eccentric people strongly rooted in the shtetls of Poland... Read more

Throughout his long and prolific career, Isaac Bashevis Singer was a writer of seeming contradictions. He wrote solely in Yiddish, a language whose speakers were almost completely wiped out in World W... Read more

In his novels and short stories, Isaac Bashevis Singer has created a world of ghosts, dybbuks, witches, and demons, a world of eccentric people strongly rooted in the shtetls of Poland and of disorien... Read more

Isaac Bashevis Singer, the only Yiddish writer ever to be awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, was among the most popular and widely read authors of the twentieth century. By the time of his death a... Read more

In the following review of The Death of Methuselah, and Other Stories, Evanier maintains that the stories of this collection are not as strong as Singer's earlier stories. Saul Bellow, an early... Read more

In the following review of The Death of Methuselah, and Other Stories, Cheyette concludes that Singer's stories continue to hold universal appeal while treating subjects specific to Jewish cult... Read more

In the following essay, Schanfield compares Singer' short story “Yentl the Yeshiva Boy” to the film adaptation, Yentl, arguing that the element of fantasy in Singer's story... Read more

In the following essay, Boland offers a philological analysis of Singer's short story “Tanhum.” Although Isaac Bashevis Singer assures his readers, and his critics, that he is wri... Read more

In the following essay, Schwarz formulates a definition of the grotesque in literature through a comparison of the short stories of Singer and Sherwood Anderson. From the Renaissance on, when the term... Read more

In the following essay, Epstein commends the stories of Singer for helping many American Jews to understand better their cultural history. I met the late Isaac Bashevis Singer only once, briefly but u... Read more

In the following essay, Sherman explores the quest for spiritual self-fulfillment in Singer's story “Androygenus.” 1 Na dir a groshn far dem oylem-habe, says a militant Maskil to ... Read more

In the following essay, Farrell provides an overview of critical responses to Singer's stories. His was a voice unique in American letters. Isaac Bashevis Singer—Jewish émigr�... Read more

In the following essay, Kaminsky views Singer's short story “Gimpel the Fool” as part of the “schlemiel tradition” in Yiddish literature. Background Isaac Bashevis S... Read more

In the following essay, Sheridan studies Singer's association of sex in marriage with redemption and his critical views of unrestrained sexuality and perversion. The 1978 Nobel Prize in Literat... Read more

Critical Essay by Edward Alexander [The] wide appeal of Singer's stories among readers ignorant of, and indifferent to, Jewish religion, Jewish history, Jewish peoplehood, is a literary fact of... Read more

Critical Essay by Edward Hirsch Isaac Bashevis Singer's new books, a memoir [A Young Man in Search of Love] and a novel [Shosha], are two more rescue operations in his ongoing literary raid on ... Read more

Critical Essay by Paul Berman "What can one do? How is one to live?" the narrator of Shosha asks, and though the setting of this novel is Warsaw of the Twenties and Thirties, before the ... Read more

Critical Essay by Maureen Howard [Singer's] fables and stories, the inspired characters, rabbis, charlatans, whores, so good, so evil, are out of a world that can never be parochial, a world ou... Read more

Critical Essay by Ted Hughes Looking over [Singer's] novels in their chronological order (the stories are written in and among, but they belong with the novels) the first apparent thing is the ... Read more

Critical Essay by Nili Wachtel The pursuit of freedom is the central experience of the modern world. Emerging from the Middle Ages, man sought the freedom to shape his own destiny as an individual. In... Read more

Critical Essay by Alexandra Johnson When asked how much longer writers could spin love stories before exhausting the time-worn theme and genre altogether, Chekhov replied, "As long as there�... Read more

Critical Essay by Mordecai Richler [Isaac Bashevis Singer brings a] quirky vision, a cunning magic all his own, to traditional Jewish experience. He has only to venture out uptown on Broadway to encou... Read more

Critical Essay by Brendan Gill ["Teibele and Her Demon"] is subtitled "A Fable," and I confess that the moment I encounter the word "fable" my heart quails, f... Read more

Critical Essay by Irving Howe [The Spinoza of Market Street] raises a difficult problem in criticism, and I should like to be candid in facing it. Singer is probably the most brilliant, though far fro... Read more

Critical Essay by Milton Hindus ["The Slave"] is a tempestuous love-story set against a background that has engaged the imagination of [its] Yiddish author deeply—the aftermath of... Read more

Critical Essay by Irving Malin [In The Magician of Lublin, Yasha, reckless adventurer and lover turned penitent] commits himself to [seclusion]; he no longer wants to be on the road (as he did at the ... Read more

Critical Essay by Paul Kresh Isaac [Bashevis Singer] sounds a theme that is fundamental to his views on writing: "A writer must have roots. The deeper a writer's roots, the greater his c... Read more

Critical Essay by Mark Harris [In "Lost in America" Isaac Bashevis Singer] makes his own rules—choosing to isolate one short span of his life and to revisit it in a form which wil... Read more

In the following essay, Howe provides an overview of Singer's literary reputation, artistic influences, and central preoccupations as expressed in his fiction. —Would it be fair to say ... Read more

In the following essay, Miron contends that Singer's fiction is not typical of contemporary Yiddish literature, citing the fatalistic passivity and underlying nihilism in his work as the major ... Read more

In the following essay, Buchen examines elements of Singer's narrative structure that "meaningfully violate and reconstitute the reader's identity, morality and chronology"... Read more

In the following essay, Fraustino draws attention to the influence of Romantic poets such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge on Singer's transcendent vision, particularly as evid... Read more

In the following essay, Pladott examines the role of the amorous male protagonist as a central figure in Singer's fiction. According to Pladott, these recurring characters underscore man'... Read more

In the following essay, Lee examines Singer's use of Biblical metaphors to confront profound existential dilemmas. Drawing comparison to Albert Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus, Lee contends... Read more