The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

A literary perspective on Schenker's Jewishness

A literary perspective on Schenker's Jewishness
A literary perspective on Schenker's Jewishness
Heinrich Schenker was a keen observer of and participant in the cultural life of his time and in his diary he diligently recorded his impressions about a wide variety of cultural events. In recent years scholars have increasingly recognised the impact his response to his cultural environment had on his own ‘project’, to allude to the title of Nicholas Cook’s ground-breaking book from 2007. This essay will explore Schenker’s views about his Jewishness as they become apparent in his response to some literary texts. Following an examination of his comments on Jews and Jewishness I will discuss three entries on literary works with a Jewish subject: Karl Kraus’s poem ‘Gebet an die Sonne von Gibeon’, John Galsworthy’s play Loyalties and Schalom Asch’s story ‘Der reiche Herr Salomon’. Schenker’s ‘literary criticism’ exemplifies three principal Jewish concerns in his thinking: the biblical foundation of Judaism; the relationship between Jews and the people among whom they live; and the Jew as an exemplary human being. Critiquing these texts allowed Schenker to highlight the characteristics of the Jews as a people and as individuals; Jewish monotheism; the Jews’ predisposition to studying and thinking and their philanthropic attitude. Most importantly, the Jews appearing in these texts reinforced his own positioning as a Jew and professional in a non-Jewish environment
1468-2249
280-303
Reiter, Andrea
2d3fad43-ac1d-4ec7-bd9f-0b9168492a84
Reiter, Andrea
2d3fad43-ac1d-4ec7-bd9f-0b9168492a84

Reiter, Andrea (2015) A literary perspective on Schenker's Jewishness. Music Analysis, 34 (2), 280-303. (doi:10.1111/musa.12045).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Heinrich Schenker was a keen observer of and participant in the cultural life of his time and in his diary he diligently recorded his impressions about a wide variety of cultural events. In recent years scholars have increasingly recognised the impact his response to his cultural environment had on his own ‘project’, to allude to the title of Nicholas Cook’s ground-breaking book from 2007. This essay will explore Schenker’s views about his Jewishness as they become apparent in his response to some literary texts. Following an examination of his comments on Jews and Jewishness I will discuss three entries on literary works with a Jewish subject: Karl Kraus’s poem ‘Gebet an die Sonne von Gibeon’, John Galsworthy’s play Loyalties and Schalom Asch’s story ‘Der reiche Herr Salomon’. Schenker’s ‘literary criticism’ exemplifies three principal Jewish concerns in his thinking: the biblical foundation of Judaism; the relationship between Jews and the people among whom they live; and the Jew as an exemplary human being. Critiquing these texts allowed Schenker to highlight the characteristics of the Jews as a people and as individuals; Jewish monotheism; the Jews’ predisposition to studying and thinking and their philanthropic attitude. Most importantly, the Jews appearing in these texts reinforced his own positioning as a Jew and professional in a non-Jewish environment

This record has no associated files available for download.

More information

e-pub ahead of print date: 20 July 2015
Published date: July 2015
Organisations: Modern Languages

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 380729
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/380729
ISSN: 1468-2249
PURE UUID: 495713e4-ad95-491f-9188-b1bc6d231dc0

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 14 Sep 2015 11:19
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 21:03

Export record

Altmetrics

Contributors

Author: Andrea Reiter

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×