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Biography:

Shmuel Yoseph Agnon

The Israeli author Shmuel Yoseph Agnon (1888-1970) is noted for his folkloric yet sophisticated novels. He received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1966.

On July 17, 1888, S. Y. Agnon was born Shmuel Yoseph Czaczkes in the town of Buszacz, Eastern Galicia (then part of Austro-Hungary). His father was descended from a long line of Talmudic scholars. The young Shmuel's studies encompassed the whole gamut of Jewish writings: the Bible, Talmudic and Midrashic lore, medieval philosophical treatises, rabbinic writings, and Hasidic tales.

As a youth of 15, Shmuel began to publish his stories and poems in Hebrew and Yiddish. In 1908 he arrived in Palestine, where young halutzim (pioneers) were establishing the base for a Jewish state. There he assumed the name of Agnon, and his fame as an original and colorful novelist began to spread. Dwelling chiefly on Hasidic folklore and legend, his tales captured the spirit and flavor of a way of life deeply rooted in Jewish tradition.

From 1913 to 1924 Agnon lived in Germany, where he married Esther Marks. They later had a son and a daughter. While in Germany, he collaborated with Martin Buber on a book of Hasidic tales. In 1924 he returned to Palestine and settled in Jerusalem, a city to which he always remained deeply attached.

Agnon's works mirror Jewish life from the 18th century to the present. In The Bridal Canopy (1931) he unfolds a picaresque tale of a pious man, Reb Yudel Hasid, who travels throughout town and village to solicit dowries for his three marriageable daughters. This work is set in a world bygone, anchored in faith and governed by a benevolent providence. This seemingly simple, pietistic way of life is also reflected in a shorter novel, In the Heart of the Seas (1935), which tells of the journey of a group of Hasidim to the land of their ancestors in the early 19th century.

In A Simple Story (1935) and A Guest for the Night (1939) the reader is ushered into the 20th century with its new and threatening forces. A Guest for the Night is based on Agnon's journey to his birthplace in the mid-1930s. World War I has shattered the old faith and traditions and on the horizon looms the still greater menace of World War II. Yesteryear (1945) is based on Agnon's experiences in Palestine before World War I. The protagonist of the novel, Yitzhak Kumer, is a somewhat weak, naive, and simple pioneer in search of self-fulfillment but overwhelmed by problems. The work tells the deeply moving story of characters struggling to turn an age-old dream into reality.

In the last decades of his life, stirred by the atrocities of World War II, Agnon infused new currents and nuances into his writings. His stories became more symbolic and took on a Kafkaesque quality. In Betrothed, A Whole Loaf, and Edo and Enam, Agnon appears as a master of enigma. The settings of these later works are often phantasmagoric, and the plots are frequently parables of the vicissitudes of modern life. Through Midrashic and mystic allusions, Agnon provides the key for deciphering the hidden meanings of these later tales.

S. Y. Agnon died on Feb. 17, 1970, and was buried on the Mount of Olives with great honors.

Further Reading

Two major works on Agnon are Arnold J. Band, Nostalgia and Nightmare: A Study in the Fiction of S. Y. Agnon (1968), a biographical as well as critical study, and Baruch Hochman, The Fiction of S. Y. Agnon (1970), an evaluation of Agnon's works against historical and literary backgrounds.

Additional Sources

Fisch, Harold, S. Y. Agnon, New York: F. Ungar Pub. Co., 1975.

Shaked, Gershon, Shmuel Yosef Agnon: a revolutionary traditionalist, New York: New York University Press, 1989.

 
 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: S.Y. Agnon

(born July 17, 1888, Buczacz, Galicia, Austria-Hungary — died Feb. 17, 1970, Rehovot, Israel) Israeli writer. Born into a Polish Galician family, Agnon settled in Palestine in 1907 and chose Hebrew as his literary language. The Day Before Yesterday (1945), perhaps his greatest novel, examines the problem facing the Westernized Jew who immigrates to Israel. Other works include the novels The Bridal Canopy (1919) and A Guest for the Night (1938). He is regarded as one of the greatest modern Hebrew novelists and short-story writers. In 1966 he and Nelly Sachs shared the Nobel Prize for Literature.

For more information on S.Y. Agnon, visit Britannica.com.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Agnon, S. Y.
(Shmuel Yosef Agnon) (shmū'ĕl yō'səf ägnōn'; yō'zəf), 1888–1970, Israeli writer, b. Buczacz, Galicia, Austria-Hungary (now Buchach, Ukraine), as Samuel Josef Czaczkes. Widely regarded as the greatest 20th-century writer of fiction in Hebrew, he shared (with Nelly Sachs) the 1966 Nobel Prize in Literature. Agnon settled in Palestine in 1907 and spent most of his life in Jerusalem. His fiction explores Jewish existence from late-18th- and early-19th-century E Europe shtels to the declining Jewish culture of the late 19th cent. to the post–World War I period and the lives of immigrants in Palestine and Israel. Although he initially wrote in both Hebrew and Yiddish, eventually he wrote in Hebrew alone. His novels, which range in approach from the realistic to the surreal, include Hakhnasat kalah (1919, tr. The Bridal Canopy, 1967), the autobiographical Ore'ah Nata' Lalun (1938, tr. A Guest for the Night, 1968), and 'Tmol shilshom (1945, tr. Only Yesterday, 2000). Agnon is also acclaimed for his short stories, which have been translated into English in Days of Awe (1938, tr. 1948), 21 Stories (1970), and Jaffa, Belle of the Seas (1998).

Bibliography

See biographies by H. Fisch (1975) and G. Shaked (1989); studies by A. J. Band (1968), B. Hochman (1970), J. Kaspi (1972), D. Aberbach (1984), A. G. Hoffman (1991), N. Ben-Dov (1993), H. Barzel and H. Weiss, ed. (1996), M. Roshwald (1996), and S. Katz (1999).

 
Mideast & N. Africa Encyclopedia: Shmuel Yosef Agnon

1888 - 1970

Hebrew writer who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1966.

Born in Buczacz (Buchach), Galicia, Shmuel Yosef Agnon emigrated to Palestine in 1907. In 1913 he went to Germany, where he married Ester Marx and started a family. In 1924 he returned to Palestine and settled in Jerusalem.

Agnon was influenced by a variety of social, cultural, and literary sources. The pious milieu of the small Jewish town where he grew up and the Jewish scholarly traditions in which he was steeped from an early age had a deep and lasting effect on his writing. The development of Hebrew literature at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth also had a formative influence on him. In 1908, after his arrival in Palestine, Agnon became involved with the literary world of the Zionist pioneers, whose ideals and way of life remained important to him throughout his life. The horrors of World War I, which Agnon witnessed in Germany, were influential for his development as a writer. He saw the world he knew disappear before his eyes.

In his works Agnon examines the psychological and philosophical repercussions of the great historical changes that occurred during his lifetime. In particular, he writes about the demise of traditional Jewish culture in Eastern Europe after World War I and the development of a new Jewish center in Palestine. Although he uses the archaic language and pious style of earlier generations, Agnon gives full expression to the vicissitudes of modern human existence: the disintegration of traditional ways of life, the loss of faith, and the loss of identity.

Agnon published four novels, each of which represents a stage in his literary development. The first, The Bridal Canopy, was written in Germany between 1920 and 1921. The novel tells about a pious Jew who travels across Galicia to collect money for his daughter's wedding. The novel evokes a bygone world of faith and superstition through a complex
blend of nostalgia and irony. The second novel, A Guest for the Night, is an account of a writer's visit to his hometown shortly after the end of World War I. The account is an attempt to grapple with the devastating impact the war had on traditional Jewish life in Eastern Europe and with the responsibility of the artist as witness. Written in the 1930s, the novel eerily foreshadows the destruction of European Jewry during the Holocaust. The third novel, published in 1945, is called Only Yesterday and takes place in Palestine during the 1920s. It revolves around the unsuccessful attempt of its hero, an idealistic pioneer who came to settle the land, to live up to his ideals. The novel is a harsh account of one of the most important periods in the development of Zionism. The fourth novel, Shira, explores the social forces in Palestine during the 1920s and 1940s through the life of a Jerusalem academic who is torn between his petit bourgeois world and his desire to live his life to the fullest.

In addition to his novels, Agnon published many parables, short stories, novellas, and other works in varying genres, including psychological love stories (The Doctor's Divorce, Fahrenheim), social satires (Young and Old), grotesque tales (The Frogs, Pisces), and pious fables about Hassidic sages (The Story of Rabbi Gadiel the Baby). Their polished exterior and detached tone hide a deep sense of pathos and pervasive irony. Agnon's frequent use of ancient Jewish sources, and the new ways in which he interprets them, create a tension between style and content that enhances the meaning of both.

Agnon had greatly influenced several generations of Hebrew writers, who found in his works a link between the Jewish world that vanished after the world wars and the existential concerns of their own time. Admired by readers and critics alike, he is one of the most acclaimed Hebrew writers and among the most widely translated. The Collected Works of S. Y. Agnon, which includes twenty-four volumes of his fiction, was published in eight volumes between 1953 and 1962. Many of his works have been published posthumously.

Bibliography

Agnon, Shmuel Yosef. The Collected Works of S. Y. Agnon. 8 vols. 1953 - 1962. In Hebrew.

Band, Arnold. Nostalgia and Nightmare: A Study in the Fiction of S. Y. Agnon. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968.

Mintz, Alan, and Hoffman, Anne Golomb, eds. A Book That Was Lost and Other Stories by S. Y. Agnon. New York: Schocken, 1995.

Shaked, Gershon. Hebrew Narrative Fiction, 1880 - 1980, vol. 2. Tel Aviv, 1988. In Hebrew.

Shaked, Gershon. Shmuel Yosef Agnon: A Revolutionary Traditionalist, translated by Jeffrey M. Green. New York: New York University Press, 1989.

— YAROM PELEG

 
Wikipedia: Shmuel Yosef Agnon
Shmuel Yosef Agnon Nobel_Prize.png

Born: July 17, 1888
Buchach, Galicia
Died: February 17, 1970
Jerusalem, Israel

Shmuel Yosef Agnon (Hebrew: שמואל יוסף עגנון, July 17, 1888 - February 17, 1970) was a Hebrew nobel prize laureate writer and was one of the central figures of modern Hebrew fiction. His works are published in English under the name S. Y. Agnon (Hebrew: ש"י עגנון, pronounced "Shai Agnon").

Agnon was born in Galicia, later immigrated as a Zionist to Ottoman Palestine, and died in Jerusalem. His works deal with the conflict between the traditional Jewish life and language and the modern world. They also attempt to recapture the fading traditions of the European shtetl (village). In a wider context, he also contributed to the narrator's character in modern literature. Agnon was awarded the nobel prize jointly with poet Nelly Sachs in 1966.

Early years

Old picture of Buczacz, Agnon's hometown
Enlarge
Old picture of Buczacz, Agnon's hometown

Agnon was born Shmuel Yosef Halevi Czaczkes in Buczacz, Galicia, now Ukraine. Officially, his date of birth on the Hebrew calendar was 18 Av 5648 (July 26) [1], but he always claimed to have been born on the Jewish fast day of Tisha B'Av, the Ninth of Av. His father, Shalom Mordechai Halevy, was ordained as a rabbi, but worked in the fur trade. He did not attend school and was schooled by his parents. At the age of eight, he began to write in Hebrew and Yiddish. He was an avid reader of Haskalah (Jewish enlightenment) literature. At the age of fifteen, he published his first poem - a Yiddish poem about the Kabbalist Joseph della Reina. He continued to write poems and stories in Hebrew and Yiddish, which were published in Galicia.

Literary career

In 1908, he immigrated to Jaffa. The first story he published there was "Agunot" ("Forsaken Wives"), which appeared that same year in the journal Ha`omer. He used the pen name "Agnon," derived from the title of the story, which he adopted as his official surname in 1924. In 1910, "Forsaken Wives" was translated into German. In 1912, at the urging of Yosef Haim Brenner, he published a novella, "Vehaya Ha'akom Lemishor" ("And the Crooked Shall Be Made Straight").

Shmuel Yosef Agnon Memorial in Bad Homburg/Germany
Enlarge
Shmuel Yosef Agnon Memorial in Bad Homburg/Germany

In 1913, Agnon moved to Germany, where he met Esther Marx. They married in 1920 and had two children. In Germany, Salman Schocken, a publisher and businessman, became his literary patronand freed him from financial worries. From that time on, his work was published by Schocken Books, and his short stories appeared regularly in the newspaper Haaretz, also owned by the Schocken family. In Germany, he continued to write short stories and collaborated with Martin Buber on an anthology of Hasidic stories.

In 1924, a fire broke out in his home, destroying his manuscripts and rare book collection. This traumatic event crops up occasionally in his stories. Later that year, Agnon returned to Jerusalem and settled with his family in the neighborhood of Talpiot. In 1929, his library was destroyed again.

When his novel Hachnasat Kalla ("The Bridal Canopy") appeared in 1931 to great critical acclaim, Agnon's place in Hebrew literature was assured.[1] In 1935, he published "Sippur Pashut" ("A Simple Story"), a novella set in Buczacz at the end of the 19th century. Another novel, "Tmol Shilshom" ("Yesteryear"), set in Eretz Yisrael of the early 20th century, appeared in 1945.

Literary prizes and acclaim

Agnon won the Bialik Prize twice (1934 and 1950) and the Israel Prize twice (1954 and 1958). In 1966, he shared the Nobel Prize in Literature with German Jewish author Nelly Sachs. In his speech at the award ceremony, Agnon introduced himself in Hebrew: "As a result of the historic catastrophe in which Titus of Rome destroyed Jerusalem and Israel was exiled from its land, I was born in one of the cities of the Exile. But always I regarded myself as one who was born in Jerusalem." (Frenz 1969)

In later years, Agnon's fame was such that when he complained to the municipality that traffic noise near his home was disturbing his work, the city closed the street to cars and posted a sign that read: "No entry to all vehicles, writer at work!"

Death and legacy

Agnon died in Jerusalem on February 17, 1970. After his death his daughter, Emmuna Yaron, continued to work to publish writings from his legacy. More of his books were published posthumously than during his life.

Agnon's archive was transferred by his family to the National Library in Jerusalem. His home in Talpiot was turned into a museum, where the study where he wrote many of his works is preserved intact.

Agnon is considered the most researched author in Hebrew literature. A substantial number of books and articles dealing with his works have been published. Among his most outstanding scholars are Baruch Kurzweil, Dov Sadan, Nitza Ben-Dov and Dan Laor.

Agnon's image has appeared on the 50 shekel banknote since 1985.

Literary themes and influences

Agnon writes about Jewish life, but with his own unique perspective and special touch. He was also influenced by German literature and culture, and European literature in general, which he read in German translation. The budding Hebrew literature also influenced his works.

The communities he passed through in his life are reflected in his works:

  • Galicia: in the books The Bridal Canopy, A City and the Fullness Thereof, and A Guest for the Night.
  • Germany: in the stories "Fernheim", "Thus Far", and "Between Two Cities".
  • Jaffa: in the stories "Oath of Allegiance", "Tmol Shilshom", and "The Dune".
  • Jerusalem: "Tehilla", "Tmol Shilshom", "Ido ve-Inam", and "Shira".

Agnon's stories have been published in various collections. Some of his works, such as The Bridal Canopy, And the Crooked Shall Be Made Straight, and The Doctor and His Ex-Wife, have been adapted for theater and performed in Israeli theaters.

A play about Agnon, "Esterlein Yekirati," was performed at the Khan Theater in Jerusalem.

Language

Agnon's writing often used words and phrases that differed from what would become established modern Hebrew. His distinct language is based on traditional Jewish sources, such as the books of Moses and the Prophets, Midrashic literature, the Mishnah, and the rabbinic legends. Some examples include:

  • bet kahava for modern bet kafe (coffee house / café)
  • batei yadayim (lit. "hand-houses") for modern kfafot (gloves)
  • yatzta (יצתה) rather than the modern conjugation yatz'a (יצאה) ("she went out")

Bar-Ilan University has made a computerized concordance of his works in order to study his language.

Writings published during Agnon's lifetime

  • The Bridal Canopy (1931), an epic describing Galician Judaism at the start of the 19th century.
  • Of Such and Of Such, a collection of stories, including "And the Crooked Shall Be Made Straight", "Forsaken Wives", and "Belevav Yamim" ("In the Heart of the Seas").
  • At the Handles of the Lock (1923), a collection of love stories, including "Bidmay Yameha" ("In the Prime of Her Life"), "A Simple Story", and "The Dune".
  • Ore'ah Noteh Lalun ("A Guest for the Night") (1938), a novel about the decline of eastern European Jewery. The narrator visits his old hometown and discovers that great changes have occurred since World War I.
  • Yesteryear (1945), a novel set in the Second Aliyah period.
  • Near and Apparent, a collection of stories, including "The Two Sages Who Were In Our City", "Between Two Cities", "The Lady and the Peddler", the collection "The Book of Deeds", the satire "Chapters of the National Manual", and "Introduction to the Kaddish: After the Funerals of Those Murdered in the Land of Israel".
  • Thus Far, a collection of stories, including "Thus Far", "Prayer", "Oath of Allegiance", "The Garment", "Fernheim", and "Ido ve-Inam".
  • The Fire and the Wood, a collection of stories including Hasidic tales, a semi-fictional acount of Agnon's family history and other stories.

Posthumous publications

  • Shira (1971), a novel set in Jerusalem in the 1930s and 1940s.
  • Ir Umeloah ("A City and the Fullness Thereof") (1973), a collection of stories and legends about Buczacz, Agnon's hometown.
  • In Mr. Lublin's Shop (1974), set in Germany of the First World War.
  • Within the Wall (1975), a collection of four stories.
  • From Myself to Myself (1976), a collection of essays and speeches.
  • Introductions (1977), stories.
  • Book, Writer and Story (1978), stories about writers and books from the Jewish sources.
  • The Beams of Our House (1979), two stories, the first about a Jewish family in Galicia, the second about the history of Agnon's family.
  • Esterlein Yekirati ("Dear Esther: Letters 1924-1931" (1983), letters from Agnon to his wife.
  • A Shroud of Stories (1985).
  • The Correspondence between S.Y. Agnon and S. Schocken (1991), letters between Agnon and his publisher.

In 1977 the Hebrew University published Yiddish Works, a collection of stories and poems that Agnon wrote in Yiddish in the years 1903-1906.

Anthologies

  • Days of Awe (1938), a book of customs, interpretations, and legends for the Jewish days of mercy and forgiveness: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and the days between.
  • Present at Sinai: The Giving of the Law (1959), an anthology for the festival of Shavuot.

References

  1. ^ Fisch, Harold (Autumn, 1970). "The Dreaming Narrator in S. Y. Agnon". Novel: A Forum on Fiction 4 (1): 49-68. 

Sources

External links

Nobel Prize in Literature Laureates

Pär Lagerkvist (1951) • François Mauriac (1952) • Winston Churchill (1953) • Ernest Hemingway (1954) • Halldór Laxness (1955) • Juan Ramón Jiménez (1956) • Albert Camus (1957) • Boris Pasternak (1958) • Salvatore Quasimodo (1959) • Saint-John Perse (1960) • Ivo Andrić (1961) • John Steinbeck (1962) • Giorgos Seferis (1963) • Jean-Paul Sartre (1964) • Michail Sholokhov (1965) • Shmuel Yosef Agnon / Nelly Sachs (1966) • Miguel Ángel Asturias (1967) • Yasunari Kawabata (1968) • Samuel Beckett (1969) • Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1970) • Pablo Neruda (1971) • Heinrich Böll (1972) • Patrick White (1973) • Eyvind Johnson / Harry Martinson (1974) • Eugenio Montale (1975)

Complete roster | (1901–1925) | (1926–1950) | (1951–1975) | (1976-2000) | (2001–2025)

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