In the following excerpt, Shaked identifies five primary types of short stories written by Agnon.

In the following essay, Fuchs deconstructs an Agnon story emphasizing the central irony, which she claims other critics have neglected.

In the following chapter from a collection of essays discussing literary manifestations of Midrash, an ancient biblical form of exegesis, Shaked demonstrates how Agnon's early story “Agunot” uses forms of intertextuality borrowed from old Hebrew traditions.

In the following essay, Almog draws linguistic comparisons between a story by Agnon and the transcript of an actual legal case in modern-day Israel, concluding that the literary text reveals more of the true nature of human conflict.

In the following excerpt from the introduction to her full-length semiotic study of Agnon's writings, Hoffman reviews her complex textual approach, encompassing psychoanalysis, traditional Hebrew criticism, and poststructuralist literary theory. (Hoffman's book contains a complete bibliography of primary and secondary sources.)

In the following essay, Fuchs maintains that an understanding of Edo and Enam as an ironic story enables the reader to make sense of the story's "strangeness," namely its "digressions, internal contradictions, sudden transitions from realism to phantasy [sic, neologisms and anachronisms."]

In the following essay, Fuchs focuses on the protagonist—both his characterization and behavior—in Forevermore (Ad Olam) in order to reveal "the underlying irony of the story, which is its most salient feature."

In the following excerpt, Hochman surveys Agnon's short fiction treating the culture of the shtetl, the Hebrew village prior to the nineteenth century.

In the following excerpt, Aberbach studies the meaning underlying the passivity of characters in Agnon's short fiction.

In the following essay, Ben-Dov discusses the “assertive mother” theme in A Simple Story and describes Agnon's use of repetition or variation of motifs to highlight the rivalry between two women for one man's attention.

In the following excerpt, Ben-Dov contends that a buried layer of biblical allusion in "The Dance of Death, or the Lovely and Pleasant" belies the overt meaning of the story.)

In the following essay, Sokoloff applies a feminist critique to an Agnon novella, which she says associates the tradition and uncertain future of the Hebrew language with its repressed and unfulfilled female characters.

When we assemble the major motifs found in [Agnon's early] Yiddish poems, we are struck by the similarity between them and the major motifs of Agnon's mature works: the struggle with the devil; violent deaths; the failure of religious ritual to inspire the worshiper; the pervasive sensation of decay in the buildings as opposed to the vitality of the natural world outside; the self-consciousness of the creative artist; the love poems; the deep concern with the destiny of the Jewish people. The ...

In the following essay, Sokoloff offers a feminist reading of the novella In the Prime of Her Life.

In the following essay, Sokoloff asserts that the plot of Forevermore (Ad Olam), which features "repetition, circularity, episodic fragmentation of narrative line, and disconnected events," is intended by Agnon to lend irony to the ostensible progress made by the protagonist.

In the following essay, Bodoff interprets Betrothed as a symbolic tale in which the modern Jew (represented by the protagonist Jacob) is torn between Hebraism (in the figure of Shoshanah) and the appeal of the secular worldliness (as symbolized by Jacob's travels, career, and involvement with gentile women).

In the following essay, Hakak offers a Freudian interpretation of "Another Face" ("Panini aherot"), claiming that sexual symbols pervade the story. Note: The title of the story, here translated as "Another Face," is also known as "Metamorphosis" (see Leon I. Yudkin, 1974).

In the following essay, Aschkenasy compares biblical references in The Mayor of Casterbridge and And the Crooked Shall Be Made Straight, concluding that Agnon's use of the biblical dimension is more subtle than Hardy's.

In the following excerpt, Yudkin examines Agnon's narrative technique as it is demonstrated in "Metamorphosis" ("Panim aherot"), focusing on the author's ability to suggest character histories extending beyond the events explicitly described in the story. Note: The title of the story, here translated as "Metamorphosis," is also known as "Another Face" (see Lev Hakak, 1986).

In the following essay, Ozick uses Agnon's novella Edo and Enam to reflect on the ambiguities of translation and on the oppositions between ideas of safety and destruction, redemption and illusion, and exile and return.

In the following excerpt, Fisch examines dreamlike aspects of the stories in Book of Fables, which is also known as Books of Deeds.

In the following essay, Mazor examines the paradoxical nature of the composition of two Agnon stories.

In the following chapter from a book of essays on Franz Kafka, Band reviews previous criticism comparing Kafka's and Agnon's writings, arguing that many of the alleged similarities in the works of the two writers have been overemphasized.

In the following essay, Mazor uses the stories "Between Two Cities" ("Ben sete 'arim") and "Two Scholars Who Lived in Our Town" ("Sne talmide hakamim sehayu be 'irenu") to demonstrate that Agnon sometimes employs puzzling narrative structure and plot development as conscious strategies.

In the following excerpt, Alter calls attention to Agnon's intermingling of ancient Hebrew and Greek worlds in Betrothed, a strategy that enhances the story's fabulous quality, according to the critic

In the following essay from a collection which offers several commentaries about specific works of Hebrew literature, Roskies discusses the complexities of an Agnon short story, “The Sense of Smell.”

In the following essay, Kubovy provides a psychological analysis of the protagonist's jealousy in "The Doctor and His Divorcée."

In the following excerpt, Leviant observes that Agnon incorporated some of his favorite themes into the narratives of Twenty-One Stories, a collection that the critic perceives as steeped in Hebrew history, culture, and language.

In the following review of Estherlein, a compilation of Agnon's letters to his wife from 1924-1931, Green states that Agnon reveals few literary secrets but offers insights into his thinking about other matters.

In the following review of the English translation of Shira, Mintz states that the novel portrays the end of the liberal German-Jewish world view.

In the following essay, Appelfeld disputes other critics who say that Agnon exemplifies the “sacred” in Judaism vs. the “profane” of secularism, asserting that Agnon had a more holistic approach which combined both tradition and change.

In the following review, Bernheim offers a mostly positive assessment of a new edition of Agnon short stories.

In the following review of an Agnon short story, Knieger calls attention to the Hebrew meaning of the phrase “face-to-face,” concluding that the narrator is facing his own isolation from traditional faith.

In the following essay, Knieger attempts to define the central theme of the story "The Face and the Image" ("Ha-panim la-panim").

In the following excerpt from an essay on contemporary Hebrew literature, Riggan calls Agnon the best of the “conservatives” who appreciated the nuances of the Hebrew language tradition.

[Agnon] is a writer of startling and total originality, resembling other Hebrew writers of the century almost as faintly as he does his European contemporaries. He draws on vast knowledge of Jewish tradition—that of the commentaries and homilies of the Talmud and the folklore of the Hasidim. His use of their language, their dialectic, their rhetoric, is deliberately imitative, but the ends to which he turns this tradition are entirely his own. Though highly allusive, his prose style is simplicity its...

["Betrothed"] has some moments of lyrical description and of direct psychological notation which are immediately successful. Yet we are absolutely compelled—by the deliberate insubstantiality of its central events and characters, by its studied narrative disjunctions, and by the author's own interpolated comments—to take it allegorically…. [Reading] Agnon's tales one feels that anything can happen next; and that the author fully intends that the secret of why...