Literary Essays and Reviews : Collected Works of A.M. Klein

The passionately held views of A.M. Klein are focused in these essays on literature and the arts. Ranging from the formally theoretical to the intensely personal, they reflect the enthusiasm and the conviction characteristic of all Klein's writing. Among the subjects that come under the critic's unblinking eye are various genres of Jewish literature, illuminating not only on their own terms but also for what they reveal about Klein's Jewish poems. There are also essays on Canadian, American, English, and European literature as general subjects, and others on specific works and individual writers, including the acclaimed articles on James Joyce. Throughout this collection is heard a critical voice sharpened with erudition and enriched with emotion. The essays are framed with an introduction, which presents a thematic analysis, and a biographical chronology, which places the essays in the context of Klein's life and work as teacher, poet, novelist, and critic. Contents 5 Introduction 11 Acknowledgments 25 Biographical Chronology 27 1. Jewish Literature And Culture 33 Koheleth. Review Of Koheleth: The Man And The Book 33 Baal Shem In Modern Dress. Review Of Lyric 36 White Magic. Review Of The Zohar In Moslem And Christian Spain 40 Chaim Nachman Bialik 43 Music Hath Charm. Review Of Jewish Music And Other Essays On Musical Topics 49 The Art Of The Passover Haggadah 53 The Last Of The Badchanim - Shloime Shmulevitz 56 Saadyah Gaon 59 Bialik Thou Shouldst Be Living At This Hour 62 Saul Tchernichovsky 66 The Thirteenth Apostle? 67 Palestine Moving-Pictures 70 Had Not Thy Torah Been My Delight ... Review Of From The Nazi Vale Of Tears 71 Some Praise The Lord - Some Pass The Ammunition. Review Of The Sabbath Prayer Book Published By The Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation 72 The Snows Of Yesteryear. Review Of My Lexicon 76 The Poetry Which Is Prayer. Review Of Líder Un Loiben 79 An Encyclopedic Work. Review Of The Mishna 82 'Apples Of Gold In Pictures Of Silver' Review Of Milan Dikduki ('Lexicon Of Hebrew Homonyms') 84 The Snows Of Yesteryear. Review Of Burning Lights 87 Look On This Picture And On This ... Review Of A Palestine Picture Book And Polish Jews: A Pictorial Record 90 Only Half the Language of Faith. Review of The Language of Faith: Selected Jewish Prayers 93 Baedeker: Kasrilevke. Review of Inside Kasrilevke 97 The Dybbuk. Text of a Trans-Canada Radio Talk 100 A Chassidic Anthology. Review of Tales of the Hasidim: The Later Masters 104 Melech Grafstein's Sholom Aleichem. Review of A Sholom Aleichem Panorama 107 Poet of a World Passed By. Review of Sefer Yiddish 109 The Art of Hertz Grosbard 111 Poems of Yehoash. Review of Poems of Yehoash 113 Of Hebrew. Calligraphy Review of The Israel Art Haggadah 115 In Memoriam: J.I. Segal 117 2. Jewish Folk Culture 123 Jewish Folk-Songs 123 Of Hebrew Humor 129 On Translating the Yiddish Folk-Song 139 The Yiddish Proverb 142 3. The Bible 155 The Bible as Literature 155 The Gesture of the Bible 161 The Bible Manuscripts 163 The Bible's Archetypical Poet 173 4. Literature And The Arts 181 From The McGill Daily 181 Proletarian Poetry 191 National Anthems 193 Queen Mab and Mickey Mouse 196 Annotation on Shapiro's Essay on Rime 199 A Definition of Poetry? A Reply to a Request 207 Sha! Sha! Shostakovitch! 211 Marginalia 212 Book Reviewing, in Seven Easy Lessons 223 The Usurper 225 In Memoriam: Alexander Bercovitch 228 The Case of Jascha Heifetz 229 5. Canadian Literature 233 Mortal Coils. Review Of The Shrouding 233 The Decencies Had Perished With The Stukas'. Review Of Dunkirk 235 The Poetry Of A.J.M. Smith. Review Of News Of The Phoenix 239 New Writers Series, No. 1. Review Of Here And Now 242 Writing In Canada. A Reply To A Questionnaire 246 6. American, European, And English Literature 255 A Curse on Columbus. Review of Jews Without Money 255 The Jew in English Poetry 256 Robinson Jeffers - Poet-Fascist? Review of Be Angry at the Sun 262 Is This the Jew the Authors Drew? 265 The Heart of Europe. Review of Heart of Europe 268 Maimonides in Hollywood. Review of A Guide for the Bedevilled 271 Grand Invective. Review of The Tempering of Russia 274 Those Who Should Have Been Ours 276 Rilke and His Translators. Review of Thirty-one Poems 281 Departure and Arrival Review of Thieves in the Night 285 Knut Hamsun 288 Isaak Babel Review of Benya Krik, the Gangster, and Other Stories 289 That Rank Picture 292 Cantabile. Review of The Cantos of Ezra Pound 294 Of Jewish Existentialism. Review of Antisémite and Jew 296 T.S. Eliot and the Nobel Prize 298 Hemlock and Marijuana. Review of In the Penal Colony: Stories and Short Pieces 305 Old Ez and His Blankets 308 The Masked Yeats Review of Yeats: The Man and the Masks, The Golden Nightingale and The Permanence of Yeats 312 Homage to Ludwig Lewisohn 314 7. James Joyce's Ulysses 319 The Oxen of the Sun 319 The Black Panther. A Study in Technique 356 A Shout in the Street. An Analysis of the Second Chapter of Joyce's Ulysses 372 Textual Notes and Emendations 397 Notes 407 Index 445