ABSTRACT

Jewish American writing is an exciting and controversial genre within post-war literature. Jewish American Literature since 1945 offers a student guide to the major writers, their key works, and their cultural and philosophical backgrounds. The theoretical underpinnings of the literature--including the postmodern, the masternarrative and metafiction--are also introduced in an accessible form. The themes, issues and philosophies of key writers such as Saul Bellow, Erica Jong, Arthur Miller, Cynthia Ozick, Philip Roth, and Isaac Bashevis Singer are inter-related, and wider literary and historical topics are explained.

chapter |17 pages

Introduction

Persistent Themes and Questions

chapter |12 pages

The Historical and Literary Foundations

Pre-1945

chapter |21 pages

Seminal Influences

Abraham Cahan, Anzia Yezierska and Henry Roth

chapter |21 pages

Jewish-American Themes in Fiction I

Bellow, Malamud, Roth and Identity Crises

chapter |19 pages

Jewish-American Themes in Fiction II

Erica Jong, Grace Paley and Tillie Olson

chapter |19 pages

Explorations in Drama

From Arthur Miller to Tony Kushner

chapter |19 pages

Poetry Across the Generations

Duality to Assimilation

chapter |19 pages

The Mediation of Jewishness in Cultural Texts

Cynthia Ozick, Leslie Fiedler, Paul Auster and Woody Allen

chapter |18 pages

Relocating Moralism in Jewish America

Past and Present in Chaim Potok and the Later Saul Bellow

chapter |17 pages

New Directions Across the Generations

From Philip Roth to Cynthia Ozick

chapter |12 pages

Conclusion

A Renaissance or Revisionism?