Language:
English
Year of publication:
2020
Titel der Quelle:
East European Jewish Affairs
Angaben zur Quelle:
50,1-2 (2020) 42-56
Keywords:
Kulbak, Moshe,
;
Yiddish poetry History and criticism
;
Cities and towns in literature
;
Space and time in literature
Abstract:
The trajectory of Moyshe Kulbak's biography (1896–1937), drawing him from small town to big city, mirrors that of many in his generation. The image of the city in tension with that small town, or rather its replacement – nature – haunts so much of his greatest work. The urban dimension of Kulbak's work is both inescapable and tantalizingly complex. This essay analyzes the first of these works, his long poem “The City” – “one of the most popularly recited poems of its day.” Over four sections – sunset, midnight, predawn, and dawn – the poem follows the city's changes as it passes the overnight into the dawn. Equally dramatic, however, is the overlay of ambivalences toward this inevitable passage, as felt by a young poet drawn toward urban possibilities and revolutionary promise and repulsed by their cruelty. It offers us a distinctive Yiddish lens on a world in which the revolution is a city.
DOI:
10.1080/13501674.2020.1774288
URL:
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