Gendering Hebrew Modernism: Rachel Bluvstein and Avraham Shlonsky on the Pages of Musaf Davar
Hebrew poets Avraham Shlonsky and Rachel Bluvstein have been inscribed in the literary canon in very different manners: Shlonsky as a trailblazing, combative modernist, Rachel as a popular, sentimental poetess. Yet both poets were active contributors to the newpaper Davar's literary supplement...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Penn Press
2011
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| In: |
The Jewish quarterly review
Year: 2011, Volume: 101, Issue: 3, Pages: 383-405 |
| Further subjects: | B
Minimalism
B Literature in the Yishuv B Hebrew Poetry B Hebrew B Rachel the poetess B Rachel Bluvstein B Gender and poetry B Davar (newspaper) B Maximalism B Avraham Shlonsky B Modernism |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Hebrew poets Avraham Shlonsky and Rachel Bluvstein have been inscribed in the literary canon in very different manners: Shlonsky as a trailblazing, combative modernist, Rachel as a popular, sentimental poetess. Yet both poets were active contributors to the newpaper Davar's literary supplement in the mid-1920s, which in August 1926 featured Rachel's poem "Like a Fowl in a Butcher's Grasp" and Shlonsky's "On the Smooth Floor" together on its cover. The visual juxtaposition of the poems provides a glimpse of the Yishuv's vibrant literary environment in which two poets with divergent modernist approaches were reading and commenting on each other's work., This article examines a poetic and critical interchange between Rachel and Shlonsky that took place on the pages of Musaf davar and other literary journals during 1926-1927. Literary scholarship has typically placed Rachel in the context of her female contemporaries and Shlonsky in the male arena of the Hebrew literary center, but a closer look at the work, and specifically, the language, of the poets themselves shows a deft manipulation of gendered rhetoric as part of a veiled exchange about maximalist and minimalist poetics. Their critical conversation demonstrates the versatility of gender as a modernist concept, as well as the importance of reading the work of these two poets together, as joint participants in emergent Hebrew modernism. |
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| ISSN: | 1553-0604 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The Jewish quarterly review
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1353/jqr.2011.0024 |