Bernuth Ruth von - How the Wise Men Got to Chelm The Life and Times of a Yiddish Folk Tradition

New York, University Press, 2016. 317 pp. Very good copy. Clean, no traces from former owner. Hardcover with dustjacket. first in-depth study of Chelm literature and its relationship to its literary precursors. When God created the world, so it is said, he sent out an angel with a bag of foolish souls with instructions to distribute them equally all over the world-one fool per town. But the angel's bag broke and all the souls spilled out onto the same spot. They built a settlement where they landed: the town is known as Chelm. The collected tales of these fools, or wise men, of Chelm constitute the best-known folktale tradition of the Jews of eastern Europe. This tradition includes a sprawling repertoire of stories about the alleged intellectual limitations of the members of this old and important Jewish community. Chelm did not make its debut in the role of the foolish shtetl par excellence until late in the nineteenth century. Since then, however, the town has led a double life-as a real city in eastern Poland and as an imaginary place onto which questions of Jewish identity, community, and history have been projected. By placing literary Chelm and its foolish antecedents in a broader historical context, it shows how they have functioned for over three hundred years as models of society, somewhere between utopia and dystopia. These imaginary foolish towns have enabled writers both to entertain and highlight a variety of societal problems, a function that literary Chelm continues to fulfill in Jewish literature to this day. ISBN: 9781479828449

See/Hide Conditions of Sale

Following conditions of sale apply:
Terms of Sale

Prices are in Euro, excluding postage, including 9% VAT.
We will let you know the price of postage as soon as possible.

Books are complete, in good condition, unless otherwise stated.

Any item can be returned for refund within 14 days after receipt.

Delivery according to the trade conditions of the NVvA and ILAB.

Please do not hesitate to ask us any further questions you have.


Verkoopvoorwaarden

Prijzen inclusief 9% btw. Kies bij voorkeur 'banktransfer' als betalingsmethode. Verzending binnen NL: Buspakjes worden meestal binnen 24 uur verzonden met Postnl (3,50 track-and-trace). Pakketverz. binnen NL voor 6,-- ongeacht gewicht. (Postnl track-and-trace)