NELC0320 - Modern Hebrew Literature and Culture in Translation: Literary Giants Pre & Post 1948

This course juxtaposes Hebrew writings from the first half of the 20th century with the avant-garde works of film, poetry, and prose that disrupted them. The central pillars of the Modern Hebrew literary canon, like H. N. Bialik and the Nobel Prize Laureate S. Y. Agnon, drew from the ancient wells of classical texts while providing future generations with the tools to express modern and post-modern sensibilities. Yehuda Amichai and his contemporaries epitomize in poetry the rebellion of Israeli authors in the 1950s against the glorification of nationalism and sacrifice. The fiction of A. B. Yehoshua, Aharon Appelfeld and Amos Oz followed the poets’ lead. Together they forged the future of Hebrew literature. Later, their sensibilities were reflected in film, sometimes in films that adapted their prose to the screen. Masks are required in this course.