"G-e-e-e o-o-o d-e-e-e! The voice spelt out"
Creators: name: Zuckerstätter, Shiri
Publisher: name: (:none)
Year: 2010

description: A lot has been written about Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep. It has been hailed as a proletarian novel, a Freudian case study, a modernist work with clear influences of James Joyce and T. S. Eliot among others, a “specifically Jewish” book, “essentially American,” a particular example of “ethnic modernism” and a novel that challenges typicality. Above all, Call It Sleep is a book about languages: English, Yiddish, Hebrew and Aramaic. Recently, research examining the interrelations between the many languages found in the book as an artistic arena establishing Roth as a representative modernist writer has been carried out. However, detailed investigation focusing on the unique interplay between English and Hebrew in relation to the theme of linguistic assimilation characterising the book has hardly been conducted. By carefully analysing language(s), etymology and translation, this study demonstrates how English and Hebrew are used in the novel to undermine the child protagonist’s process of Americanization. Thus, this research focuses not as much on what the text means as how it means. This examination is an enquiry into the larger issue of the way in which “language writes itself” and it may help us understand the unique role of Hebrew as an indelible signifier of Jewish identity immune to the process of acculturation forged in the clash with the English language in Call It Sleep in particular and Jewish American literature in general. A lot has been written about Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep. It has been hailed as a proletarian novel, a Freudian case study, a modernist work with clear influences of James Joyce and T. S. Eliot among others, a “specifically Jewish” book, “essentially American,” a particular example of “ethnic modernism” and a novel that challenges typicality. Above all, Call It Sleep is a book about languages: English, Yiddish, Hebrew and Aramaic. Recently, research examining the interrelations between the many languages found in the book as an artistic arena establishing Roth as a representative modernist writer has been carried out. However, detailed investigation focusing on the unique interplay between English and Hebrew in relation to the theme of linguistic assimilation characterising the book has hardly been conducted. By carefully analysing language(s), etymology and translation, this study demonstrates how English and Hebrew are used in the novel to undermine the child protagonist’s process of Americanization. Thus, this research focuses not as much on what the text means as how it means. This examination is an enquiry into the larger issue of the way in which “language writes itself” and it may help us understand the unique role of Hebrew as an indelible signifier of Jewish identity immune to the process of acculturation forged in the clash with the English language in Call It Sleep in particular and Jewish American literature in general. A lot has been written about Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep. It has been hailed as a proletarian novel, a Freudian case study, a modernist work with clear influences of James Joyce and T. S. Eliot among others, a “specifically Jewish” book, “essentially American,” a particular example of “ethnic modernism” and a novel that challenges typicality. Above all, Call It Sleep is a book about languages: English, Yiddish, Hebrew and Aramaic. Recently, research examining the interrelations between the many languages found in the book as an artistic arena establishing Roth as a representative modernist writer has been carried out. However, detailed investigation focusing on the unique interplay between English and Hebrew in relation to the theme of linguistic assimilation characterising the book has hardly been conducted. By carefully analysing language(s), etymology and translation, this study demonstrates how English and Hebrew are used in the novel to undermine the child protagonist’s process of Americanization. Thus, this research focuses not as much on what the text means as how it means. This examination is an enquiry into the larger issue of the way in which “language writes itself” and it may help us understand the unique role of Hebrew as an indelible signifier of Jewish identity immune to the process of acculturation forged in the clash with the English language in Call It Sleep in particular and Jewish American literature in general.
description: Viel wurde bereits geschrieben über Henry Roths Call It Sleep. Es wurde gepriesen als proletarische Novelle, als Analyse Freud’scher Theorien , als modernes Werk mit eindeutigen Einflüssen von James Joyce und T.S.Eliot und Anderen, als „ ausgesprochen Jüdisches „ Buch, als essentiell Amerikanisch , als Paradebeispiel für das moderne Ethnische und eine Novelle die Typikalität herausfordert. Darüber hinaus ist Call It Sleep ein Buch über Sprachen: Englisch, Jiddisch, Hebräisch und Aramäisch. Kürzlich wurde eine Studie über die Beziehung der vielen, im Buch verwendeten Sprachen, durchgeführt, die Roth als Repräsentant der Moderne darstellt. Das Thema der linguistischen Assimilation charakterisiert das Buch aber genauere Untersuchungen, die sich auf die einzigartige Interaktion zwischen dem Englischen und dem Hebräischen bezüglich dieses Themas beziehen wurden bisher noch nicht durchgeführt. Bei sorgfältiger Untersuchung von Sprache(n), Wortursprung und Übersetzung zeigt die Studie, wie das Englische und das Hebräische in der Novelle verwendet werden, um die Amerikanisierung des jungen Protagonisten zu unterwandern. Diese Studie konzentriert sich nicht so sehr darauf, was der Text aussagt, sondern wie er es aussagt. Diese Untersuchung ist eine Recherche ins Innere des Überbegriffs „ wie Sprache sich selbst schreibt „ und Sie kann uns die besondere Rolle des Hebräischen als etwas untrennbar Verbundenes mit der jüdischen Identität erklären, unveränderbar im Prozess der kulturellen Anpassung, die beim Zusammenprall mit der englischen Sprache in Call It Sleep – und in Jüdisch Amerikanischer Literatur generell entsteht.