Looking Again: Representation in Nineteenth-Century Yiddish Literature

The article constitutes a broad overview of the treatment of representation in some of the most well-known texts in nineteenth century hasidic and maskilic literature. It suggests a certain discomfort with direct representation in hasidic texts that stems from specific literary and theological purpose, and that the maskilim adopt this literary strategy as part of their subversive means of "creative betrayal" of these important texts. Their resulting use of these borrowed strategies of representation, though, becomes a locus of expression of their anxieties about the necessity of borrowing these strategies from hasidic literature in the first place.