1. The specific works of all these critics are mentioned in the course of this paper.
2. For instance, the most useful generations summarized by Shaked; see Shaked, Gershon, Ha-Sipporet ha-Ivril 1880–1970[The Hebrew narrative 1880–1970] (Tel Aviv: Keter ha-Kibbutz ha-Me'uḥad, 1928), pp. 48–51.
3. Although these weaknesses in numerous novels in the corpus are undoubtedly not to be denied, many of the novels which carry these compositional faults also include many other compositional phenomena which are highly impressive and well wrought. Thus, the obvious weaknesses in these novels led most critics to make normative generalizations and to abandon any discussion of other compositional phenomena that exist in the same corpus and deserve a favorable evaluation. This issue has been discussed in detail in Yair Mazor, “Aspects and Trends in the Poetics of Composition in Hebrew Realistic Narrative in the Enlightenment Period” [Hebrew] (doctoral diss., Tel Aviv University, 1981).
4. Klausner was the critic who outlined the “period of the Hebrew realistic literature”—as he puts it—to these exact years; see Klausner, Joseph, Historyah shel ha-Sifrut ha-lvrit ha-Hadashah[History of modern Hebrew literature] (Jerusalem: Achisaph, 1955), vol. 3, p. 350.
5. James, Miller, ed., Theory of Fiction: Henry James(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1922), “The Art of Fiction,” p. 33.
7. Shapira, Ḥayyim N., Toledo ha-Sifrut ha-lvrit ha-Ḥadashah[History of modern Hebrew literature] (Tel Aviv: Massada, n.d.), vol. 1, p. 162.
8. Halkin, Simon, Mavoh la-Sipporet ha-lvrit[Approach to Hebrew narrative], ed. Tsofia, Hillel (Jerusalem: Mifal ha-Shikhpul, Hebrew University, 1958), pp. 228, 233.
9. Ewen, Joseph, Millon Munaḥei ha-Sipporet[Dictionary of narrative terms] (Jerusalem: Academon, Hebrew University, 1958), p. 15.
10. Shaanan, Avraham, Ha-Sifrut ha-lvrit ha-Hadashah li-Zerameha[Currents of modern Hebrew literature] (Tel Aviv: Massada, 1962), vol. 1, p. 36.
11. See Levin, Harry, Concepts of Criticism(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958), p. 62.
12. See Frye, Northrop, Anatomy of Criticism(New York: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 49; Wellek, René, Concepts of Criticism(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962), p. 24; Levin, , Concepts of Criticism, p. 233; Roman Jakobson, “Al ha-Realism ba-Omanut” [About realism in art], Ha-Sifrut2, no. 2 (January 1920): 269; Ewen, Millon Munaḥey ha-Sipporet, p. 14; Brinker, Menachem, Mi-Ba'ad la-Medumeh[From behind the imaginary] (Tel Aviv: Israeli Institute of Poetics and Semiotics, Ha-Kibbutz ha-Me'uhad, 1980), p. 90.
13. Grant, Damian, Realism(London: Methuen, 1920), p. 1.
14. Wellek, René and Warren, Austin, Theory of Literature(1943; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1956), p. 256.
15. See Streit, Shalom, Ba-Alol ha-Shahar[As dawn rises] (Tel Aviv: Hedim, 1937), pp. 104–105; Lachower, Fishel, Toledot ha-Sifrut ha-Ivrit ha-Ḥadashah[History of modern Hebrew literature] (Tel-Aviv: Dvir, 1966), vol. 2, p. 238; Ribalow, Menachem, “Al Kever Mordechai David Brandstaedter-ha-Sofer” [Brandstaedter the author-in front of his tomb], Hadoar 7, no. 28 (1928): 438–440; Klausner, Joseph, “Mordechai David Brandstaedter,” Ketuvim 2, no. 37 (1928): 1; Baron, Shelomoh, “Al Kever Mordechai David Brandstaedter-ha-Ish” [Brandstaedter the man-in front of his tomb], Hadoar 7, no. 28 (1928): 440–441; Ben-Or, Aharon, Toledol ha-Sifrut ha-Ivrit ha-Ḥadashah[History of modern Hebrew literature] (Tel Aviv: Izre'l, 1949), vol. 1, p. 316; Ben-Menachem, Moshe, “Mordechai David Brandstaedter,” Ha-Poel ha-Za'ir 25, nos. 1–3 (1954): 19; Pelli, Moshe, “Darkho ha-Sippurit shel M. D. Brandstaedter be-“Mordechai Kizyavitch”” [Brandstaedter's way of narration of his story “Mordechai Kizyavitch”], Bitzaron, no. 67 (1976), pp. 28–30.
16. Shaanan summarizes the many aspects of this compositional error in Ayit Ẓavua;see Shaanan, , Ha-Sifrut ha-Iwit ha-tfadashah li'zerameha, vol. 1, p. 235.
17. See Reuben, Brainin, ed., Me'ah Mikhtavim: Mikhtevei Perez ben Moshe Smolenskin[One hundred letters: The letters of Perez ben Moshe Smolenskin] (Vilna, 1901), pp. 31–32.
18. See Mazor, , “Aspects and Trends in the Poetics of Composition,” esp. pp. 23–33, 49–50, 55–56, 58–62, 66–67, 90–109, 114–126, 141–181.
19. About literary retardation and its aesthetic functions, see Victor Erlich, Russian Formalism(The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1969).
20. The suspension of expositional information as a literary device was first discussed by ihe Russian formalists; see T. L. Lemon and N. J. Reis, eds., Russian Formalist Criticism, p. 73. Later this phenomenon was discussed by the following: Ingarden, Roman, The Literary Work of An, trans. G. G. Grabowicz (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern University Press, 1973), pp. 38–40; Beardsley, C. M., Aesthetics(New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1958), pp. 242–245; Iser, Wolfgang, “Indeterminancy and the Reader's Response in Prose-Fiction,” in Aspects of Narrralive, ed. Miller, J. H. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), p. 8. A very detailed discussion of this compositional phenomenon is to be found in Sternberg, Meir, Expositional Modes and Temporal Ordering in Fiction(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), pp. 50–53.
21. The first critic who systematically dealt with the analogy as a major compositional pattern was Fergusson; see Fergusson, Francis, The Idea of a Theater (New York: Doubleday, 1949), pp. 109–110, 114–123, 139–144. The concept of the analogy was thoroughly developed by Empson; see Empson, William, Some Versions of Pastoral(New York: New Directions, 1950), pp. 27–88. The phenomenon of the analogy in the English novel has been discussed by Stang, Richard, The Theory of the Novel in England 1850–1870(New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), pp. 15–133.
22. Fabula-the chronological sequence of the fictional events in the piece. Sujet-the sequence of the fictional events as it is wrought and presented in the piece, which in many cases contradicts the chronological sequence. A well-known example of manipulation of the sujetin the order of the fabulais the opening of the piece in medias res.See Lemon and Reis, Russian Formalist Criticism, p. 63. E. M. Forster translated fabulaas “story” and sujetas “plot”; but this seems to be a rather confusing translation, as Forster admits to another meaning of the terms; see E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel(London, 1961), p. 35.
23. The first critic to discuss the dynamic nature of the literary text was Lessing; see Lessing, G. E., Laocoon(1766; New York: Noonday Press, 1957). The first modern critics to deal with the dynamics of the literary text were Ingarden, Mukarovsky, and Tynjanov; see lngarden. Literary Work of Art, pp. 9–145; Mukarovsky, Jan, On Poetic Language, trans, and ed. J., Burbank and P., Steiner (1940; Lisse: Peter de Ridder Press, 1976), pp. 50–59; Frank, Joseph, “Spatial Form in Modern Literature,” in Criticism, ed. M., Schorer (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1958), pp. 379–392; Fish, S. E., “Literature and the Reader: Effective Stylislics,” New Literary History 2, no. 1 (Autumn 1920): 123–162, Iser, “Indeterminancy and the Reader's Response,” 1–45. This issue has been impressively developed by Menachem Perry in many works; see esp. Perry, “The Dynamics of the Literary Text” [Hebrew], Ha-Sifrut, no. 28 (April 1929), pp. 6–46. A book which is wholly dedicated to this topic is Mazor, Yair, The Dynamics of Motifs in Selected Works of S. Y. Agnon[Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Dekel Academic Press, 1979).
24. An adequate discussion of these terms and their literary functions will be found in Booth, W. C., The Rhetoric of Fiction(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), pp. 3–20. Also see Lubock, Percy, The Craft of Fiction(New York: Viking Press, 1963), p. 110.
25. Narrative time-the duration of the narrative process; narrated time-the duration of the narrated material. See Stanzel, Franz, Narrative Situations in the Novel(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1971), p. 17.
26. See M. D. Brandstaedter, Sippurim[Stories], ed. B. A. Feingold (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1974), pp. 116–160.
27. Eleazar, , Schulmann, Ozar Sippurim[Collected Stories] (Warsaw: S. B. Schwarzberg, 1894), pp. 7–29.
28. All translations from the Hebrew have been done by this writer—Y.M.
29. In Ha-Shaḥar[The dawn], 6 (1871): 157–169, 190–206, 254–270.
31. See Iser, “Indeterminancy and the Reader's Response,” p. 292.
32. Dr. Betty Diamond, in conversation with this writer.
33. See Ingarden, Roman, The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art, trans. R. A. Crowley and K. R. Olson (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern University Press, 1937), p. 87; Orwell, George, Inside the Whale and Other Essays(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1957), p. 142; Wellek and Warren, Theory of Literature, pp. 122–123.
34. For various historical reasons, which had social, cultural, and aesthetic consequences, there was a lapse in the creation of Hebrew literature—especially prose fiction—in Europe during the period from the end of the sixteenth century up to the very end of the eighteenth century.
35. See Patterson, David, The Hebrew Novel in Czarisl Russia(Edinburgh: At the University Press, 1964), pp. 42–43.
36. See Stang, , Theory of the Novel in England, pp. 118–119
