Haike Beruriah Wiegand.

Modern Language Review, Vol. 103, No. 3, Jul 2008, pp. 800-806.

The early twenty-first century has been very productive in terms of scholarship on the Yiddish writer and Nobel Prizewinner Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-91). This review article discusses two major anthologies of Bashevis criticism, two monographs exploring Bashevis's life and works, a bibliography comprising the years 1960-91, and an article, published in Yiddish in Forverts in New York, which presents the discovery of Bashevis's earliest published writings in Bilgoraj. The review argues that Bashevis scholarship should be based on the original Yiddish text of his works, even though he himself authorized the standard English translations of his oeuvre. (Author abstract)

Sanford Kessler.

Review of Politics, Vol. 69, No. 3, Summer 2007, pp. 431-446.

Isaac Bashevis Singer's posthumously published novel Shadows on the Hudson contains his deepest, most sustained reflections on the moral and religious character of modernity. Using America as his paradigm, Singer argues that modern religious skepticism has destroyed the moral authority of the Ten Commandments. This depletion of moral capital has led to the growth of a powerful "underworld" culture that fosters the idolatrous worship of material well-being, reason, and Eros. Singer believes that ultraorthodox Judaism is the only religion now able to check this evil in principle. Yet, he fears that this religion can do little more in our postbiblical world than to highlight modernity's moral flaws. Thus, he offers an uncommonly bleak prognosis for the future unless modern poets can create a new religion that better meets the needs of our time.

Joseph Epstein.

New Criterion, Vol. 25, No. 1, September 2006, pp. 15-21.

Reflects on the question of whether serious authors should write for posterity. Suggests that of contemporary writers of fiction, only Isaac Bashevis Singer, whose work has a timeless quality, may be read in a hundred years time. Notes the decline in the reputation of 20th century literary critics like Edmund Wilson and F.R. Leavis, and suggests that among critics only Johnson and Arnold have stood the test of time. Concludes by considering the continuing relevance of the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville and George Orwell, and the fundamental themes of human life that Tolstoy tapped in to, finding this capacity the key to his literary longevity.

Albert Waldinger.

Meta, Vol. 47, No. 4, Dec 2002, pp. 461-478.

This article interprets the career of the Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978, in English translation. Involved is an understanding of the emotional & linguistic impact of the Haskala or "Jewish Enlightenment" on Polish Jewish life as well as of the other ideologies confronting Jewry - Socialism, Zionism, & Hassidic Return, for example. Involved also is a just evaluation of the linguistic achievements of Singer's translators, especially Jacob Sloan, Cecil Hemley, Elaine Gottlieb, Saul Bellow & Isaac Rosenfeld, all of whom have a creative identity with a thematic & stylistic influence on translation quality. An attempt is likewise made to demonstrate Singer's transcendence of his rabbinical past & of his refuge in the United States. 63 References. Adapted from the source document

John Guzlowski.

Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, Vol. 20, No. 1, Fall 2001, pp. 21-35.

Isaac Bashevis Singer is a writer who seems tied to the past and the distant, mythic regions of Eastern Europe. But he is also a writer who has written extensively about America in Enemies: A Love Story, The Penitent, and the posthumously published Meshugah and Shadows on the Hudson. This essay discusses his depiction of America and its effect on Jews. He sees Jews being transformed by their experiences here in America and fears what will happen if Jewishness disappears under the pressure of a materialistic culture of the kind America and the modern world seem to offer.