Language:
Spanish
Year of publication:
1989
Titel der Quelle:
Prooftexts; a Journal of Jewish Literary History
Angaben zur Quelle:
9,2 (1989) 139-160
Keywords:
Levi, Primo,
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature
Abstract:
Examines the ambiguity of the role of language in Primo Levi's works on the Holocaust and the concentration camp experience, especially in his novel "If Not Now, When?" (1982). Explores the connection between language and Jewish identity in Levi's attitudes toward Yiddish, Italian, and Hebrew. Yiddish is viewed as the appropriate language of memory (after "Lager jargon", which is impossible to evoke), but it also marks the Jew as victim. Italian represents European culture, a culture which demanded the Jew's integration in a world that consistently labelled the Jew as different and inferior. But Levi viewed his Italian as a sort of crypto-Yiddish, the language in which he expressed his Jewishness. Finally, the appropriate language for the Jew is Hebrew.
Note:
Another version appeared in "Midstream" 35,7 (1989); in French: "La langue speciale des camps, et après" in "L'inconscient du yiddish" (2003) 29-59. A Spanish version appeared as "Primo Levi: 'si no hablan idish, no son judíos'" in "Identidades judías, modernidad y globalización" (2007) 137-164.
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