Description
The most famous play in the Yiddish repertoire, S. Ansky’s The Dybbuk has been made into two films and three operas and has been staged all over the world. As an extraordinary product of the Yiddish imagination, however, its literary and religious roots have never been thoroughly explored.
With a new translation of Ansky’s play that conveys its brilliant supernatural poetry, this anthology comprises thirty highly diverse literary masterpieces dating from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. Beginning with the first Yiddish tale about a possession (1602), these works influenced Ansky or formed a cultural and spiritual network that shows us how the era and tradition precipitated the drama. The result is a literary mosaic that shows a vast array of styles, from the earthy simplicity of homespun folk tales to the delicacy and elegance of polished literary expression.
Joachim Neugroschel brings together a wide variety of stories, verse narratives, and even modern melodrama—many never before translated into English.
Table of Contents
Introduction—Ansky: The Dybbuk and the Yiddish Imagination
From A Letter to Khaim Zhitlovsky, S. Ansky
The Dybbuk, or Between Two Worlds (A Dramatic Legend in Four Acts), S. Ansky
From The Ethnographic Expedition Questionnaire, S. Ansky
The Possession, Jacob Ben Abraham Of Mezritch
The Tale of the Evil Spirit in Korets (Korzc) During the Turmoil of War, Anonymous
B´eria and Z´ımra, Yitskhok Bar Yehudah Reutlingen
The Companion in Paradise, Anonymous
The Grave of the Bride and Groom, Folk Tale
Warnings and Exorcisms for Driving Out a Dybbuk, Folk Tale
A Tale of Poznan, Tsvi Hirsh Kaidanover
The Man Who Married a She-Demon: A Tale of the Town of Worms, Anonymous
Tales of the Baal-Shem-Tov, Dov Ber Ben Shmuel
A Tale of a Lost Princess, Rabbi Nakhman of Braslev
A Tale of a King and an Emperor, Rabbi Nakhman of Braslev
Pious T´ırtse, Aizik-Meyer Dik
The G´ılgul, or The Wandering Soul, Aizik-Meyer Dik
The Haunted Tailor, Sholem Aleichem
The Baal-Shem-Tov Arranges a Marriage, Yitsik Leybesh Peretz
The Hermit and the Little Goat, Der Nister (Pinkhas Kahanovitch)
Demons, Der Nister (Pinkhas Kahanovitch)
Seven Days from Now and The Final Tear, Srol Va´ Kser
The Ghost Writer, or Letters from the Beyond S. Ansky
Ashmedai S. Ansky
The Dybbuk, Dovid-Leyb Mekler
Blowing the Shofar, Shloyme Berlinsk
The G´ılgul, Anonymous
The Pledge, Peretz Hirschbein
The Tale of the “Baal-Shem” and the “Dybbuk,” So´ Nye The Wise Woman
The Last Dybbuk, Folk Tale
Forgiveness, Sarah Hamer-Jacklyn
About the Author
Joachim Neugroschel has translated some 180 books from French, German, Italian, Russian, and Yiddish, including works by Franz Kafka, Sholem Aleichem, Thomas Mann, Albert Schweitzer, and Hermann Hesse. He has won three PEN translation prizes as well as the translation prize of the French-American Foundation. In 1996, the French government made him a chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters.
December 2000