The History of Yiddish Literature in the Nineteenth CenturyWiener, Leo
History
The History of Yiddish Literature in the Nineteenth Century
Wiener, Leo
Yiddish literature -- History and criticism
From 1894 to 1896 Perez has been issuing small pamphlets of about thirty
octavo pages at irregular intervals. They are called 'Holiday Leaves,'
and bear each a special name appropriate for each particular occasion. A
certain part of these pamphlets has stories and discussions to suit the
occasions for which they are written, but on the whole their contents do
not differ from those of his periodicals. Here again Perez has furnished
most of the matter. The other writers are David Pinski, J. Goido,
Solomon Grossglück, M. J. Freid, who also contributed to his earlier
magazines. It is evident that they follow their master in the general
manner of composition, though at a respectable distance. Of these,
Freid[107] has written some good sketches of animal life. His 'Mursa' is
the story of a bitch who has given birth to some puppies:--her love for
her offspring, her madness when she finds her young ones drowned and
gone, and her death by strangulation. 'Red Caroline, a Novel of Animal
Life,' is a similar story from the life of a cow. They are well told and
display talent in the author. Of the others, Pinski[108] deserves to be
mentioned specially, both on account of the quantity and the quality of
his work. Most of his sketches do not rise above the mediocre, but there
are several that are as good as those of Spektor. The best of his are
those that are entitled 'The Oppressed,' the first of which appeared in
'Literature and Life.' In this he tells of the tyranny exercised by a
shopkeeper on his clerk, and of the timidity of his wretched
subordinate, who merely ekes out an existence by working for him from
daybreak until late at night from one end of the year to the other. The
brutal master, the cowardly, downtrodden clerk, his courageous daughter
who urges her father to leave the store in spite of the shopkeeper's
protest, the scene at home, where his wife has just given birth to a
child, where there is no money for a fire or for medicine,--all this is
drawn dramatically and naturally. Goido[109] began to issue a aeries of
stories in Wilna, in the manner of Perez's 'Holiday Leaves,' and they
attracted Perez's attention, who encouraged him in his literary career.
Regarding his career in America, we shall find him more especially
mentioned in the next chapter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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