Introduction To Old Yiddish Literature

1. The Invention Of A Language: Yiddish Among The European Vernaculars
2. The Emergence Of Yiddish Literature And The Crisis In Jewish Society
3. The Printing, Distribution, And Audience Of Yiddish Books
4. Bilingualism And The Development Of Old Yiddish LIterature
5. Yiddish Bibles
6. Medieval Epic And Romance In Yiddish
7. Elia Bahur Levita And The `romanzo Cavalleresco’
8. Books Of Morality And Custom
9. Prayer In The Vernacular
10. Yiddish Narrative
11. Terrestrial Suffering In A Topsy-Turvy World Conclusion: From The Old To The New

Additional Info
Jean Baumgarten’s Introduction to Old Yiddish Literature , thoroughly revised from the first edition and translated into English, provides students and scholars of medieval, Renaissance, and early modern European cultures with an exemplary survey of the broad and deep literary tradition in Yiddish. Baumgarten conceives of his work as the study of an entire culture via its literature, and thus he conceives of literature in a broad sense: he begins with four chapters addressing pertinent issues of the larger cultural context of the literature and moves on to a consideration of the primary genres in which the culture is expressed (epic, romance, prose narrative, drama, biblical translation and commentary, ethical and moral treatises, prayers, and the broad range of literature of daily use – medical, legal, and historical). In the field of early Yiddish studies the book will be the standard of intellectual breadth and scholarly excellence for decades to come. In this second edition, the hundreds of text citations and bibliographical references that are the scholarly basis of the study have been verified, and the citations translated anew directly from the original source.