SOURCE: "The Process of Renewal in Nelly Sachs' Eli," in German Quarterly, Vol. XLIX, No. 1, January, 1976, pp. 50-8.

In the following essay, Dodds examines Eli as a work representative of the influence of Hasidism on Sachs's writing. The piece includes a concise explanation of Hasidism and its place within Judaism.

In 1940 Nelly Sachs fled Germany for Sweden, leaving behind her the country of her German-Jewish heritage. The war years 1943 and 1944 saw the composition of the verse drama Eli and of many poems, which appeared in 1946 as In den Wohnungen des Todes. Here almost her sole poetic theme was death…. This preoccupation with the images of war manifests itself in Eli and in the poems of In den Wohnungen des Todes. The same tone, the same metaphors and symbols permeate both works. In the poems of the volume Sternverdunklung, published in 1949, death continues to be the prominent theme.

Nelly...