Susanne Zepp Book order

The multilingualism and polyphony of Jewish literary writing around the globe requires a collaborative, comparative, and interdisciplinary investigation into the methods of researching and teaching literature. This volume presents case studies from

This volume addresses the nexus between historical experience and philological understanding in the writings of the literary scholar Peter Szondi (1929–1971). Surveying the breadth and depth of Szondi’s theoretical interests, the volume weaves a comprehensive portrait of this unique thinker. His contribution to the field of Comparative Literature was significant, and in some cases groundbreaking. Bringing together articles by historians, literary scholars and cultural historians, this volume portrays Peter Szondi’s thinking about literature, thereby conveying a sense of the scope and significance of his intellectual interests and achievements, while not neglecting the aspect of biographical and chronological coherence. Peter Szondi’s life and work is presented as intricately intertwined with the philosophical, political, and historical context of the 20th century.

What role has Jewish intellectual culture played in the development of modern Romance literature? Susanne Zepp seeks to answer this question through an examination of five influential early modern texts written between 1499 and 1627: Fernando de Rojas's La Celestina, Leone Ebreo's Dialoghi d'amore, the anonymous tale Lazarillo de Tormes (the first picaresque novel), Montaigne's Essais, and the poetical renditions of the Bible by João Pinto Delgado. Forced to straddle two cultures and religions, these Iberian conversos (Jews who converted to Catholicism) prefigured the subjectivity which would come to characterize modernity. As "New Christians" in an intolerant world, these thinkers worked within the tensions of their historical context to question norms and dogmas. In the past, scholars have focused on the Jewish origins of such major figures in literature and philosophy. Through close readings of these texts, Zepp moves the debate away from the narrow question of the authors' origins to focus on the innovative ways these authors subverted and transcended traditional genres. She interprets the changes that took place in various literary genres and works of the period within the broader historical context of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, demonstrating the extent to which the development of early modern subjective consciousness and its expression in literary works can be explained in part as a universalization of originally Jewish experiences.