Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 4.284
January 18, 1995

1) Glatshteyn and Mozart (Dan Leeson)
2) Glatshteyn and Mozart (Gaston L. Schmir)
3) Glatshteyn and Mozart (Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan )
4) Glatshteyn (Harvey Spiro)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 16:13:11 EST
From: leeson@aspen.fhda.edu
Subject: Glatshteyn and Mozart

I am so very grateful to Janet Hadda, Morrie Feller, and Larry Rosenwald
for providing me with information about Glatshteyn. Where in the world
could one go except Mendele to get that kind of information?

Can you (Jan, Morrie, Larry, or anyone else aware of Glatshteyn's
personal life) tell me something about his interest in Mozart? I posted
the only such poem that I knew and which I treasure because of its
subject matter, but somewhere, floating around between the liver and the
spleen is the notion that he wrote more than one poem on the topic of
Mozart.

I was in Israel on business and gave a talk at the University in Tel Aviv
about the then concluding complete Mozart edition.  It was, at the time,
about 200 volumes and another 10 or so were still to be printed.  This
was around 1986.  At that lecture I asked if anyone in the class (all of
whom were seeking degrees in musicology) was aware of Glatshteyn's poem
on Mozart and when they all looked at me as if I were speaking about a
size 14 bustuz%!rame, I recited the poem to them in Yiddish.  Two or
three of the students went mad with joy on hearing it.  (A few asked me
to translate it because they had no knowledge of Yiddish, and I read the
translation I posted on the list last time).  It would be nice to know if
Glatshteyn did other Mozart poetry.

Dan Leeson

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 16:04:14 -0500 (EST)
From: glschm@minerva.cis.yale.edu
Subject: Glatshteyn and Mozart

To Dan Leeson: re Mendele 4.279

The following is taken from the Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish
verse, ed. by Irving Howe, Ruth R. Wisse and Khone Shmeruk, Viking,
New York, 1987, p 425. Among the 14 poems by Glatstein included in
this anthology are "Mozart" and "From Kleine Nachtmusik". There
are some interesting differences between your translation of
"Mozart" and that offered by Cynthia Ozick.

Jacob Glatstein (Yankev Glatshteyn) 1896 (Lublin, Poland) - 1971
(New York)

"Coming to America in 1914, Glatstein studied law at New York
University, where he befriended the poets N.B.Minkoff and Aaron
Glants-Leyeles, co-founders of the magazine In Zich. His early
poems, influenced by psychoanalytic theories of the unconscious and
by the modernist break with cultural continuity, fulfilled the
Introspectivist platform of "individuality in everything and
introspection in everything". In time, and particularly after a
visit to Poland in 1934, his poetry drew more powerfully from
Jewish tradition and contemporary Jewish concerns. his verbal wit
and cultural allusiveness gained depth from this fresh exposure to
his own and the common Jewish past. One of the most cosmopolitan
and intellectual of Jewish writers, he also excelled at political
journalism and literary criticism, wrote short stories and novels,
edited literary magazines and for some years stood at the center of
American Yiddish cultural activity."

Gaston L. Schmir

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 15:25:09 -0500
From: shirshan@aol.com
Subject: Glatstein and Mozart

Dan Leeson (Vol. 4.279) offered a translation of Glatstein's "Mozart"
by Richard Fein.

A different translation by Cynthia Ozick of comes to mind. For a lover of
words, Ozick's genius can make a translation stand as bold as a statue
unveiled, as a brilliant poem (she even rhymes and half rhymes!) in its
own right. And yet, she is truer to Glatstein's images, vocabulary and
concepts.

     Mozart

I dreamt that the goyim
crucified Mozart
and dug him a donkey's grave.
It was only the Jews
who made him a God-Man,
and kept his memory
blessed.

His apostle, I ran through the world
converting everyone in sight.
I snatched proselytes
all over; Christians for Mozart.

Marvel
at the Testament of Music
of the Man Divine;
his song-nailed hands
shine.
Crucified singer,
how his fingers go after
laughter
in deepest affliction.
Through dooms of tears
more than himself he loves
his neighbor's ears.

The Sermon on the Mount;
how stark,
how bereft,
when you count
what Mozart left.

Marjorie Schonhaut Hirshan

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed Jan 18 09:27:30 1995
From: hjs@nrc.gov
Subject: Yaakev Glatshteyn

In Mendele 4.279, Dan Leeson asks about Yaakev (also Yankev or Jacob)
Glatshteyn.  I'm sure that other more knowledgeable Mendelyaner will
provide either biographical notes or even (I hope) anecdotes about
Glatshteyn, who was one of the leading American Yiddish poets,
journalists and essayists in the mid-twentieth century.  A collection of
his essays on many of the major figures in Yiddish literature was
published as "In tokh genumen."  (Does anyone know if this was ever
translated into English?)

Some recent sources for Glatshteyn's poetry in bilingual
editions that are still in print include:

1. "Penguin book of modern Yiddish verse," edited by Irving Howe, Ruth
Wisse, and Khone Shmeruk, Viking press, 1987.  Although many Mendelyaner
assume that "we all" own this rich volume of poetry, newcomers to Yiddish
may not be aware of it.  Probably the easiest to find of the volumes I
list.  Available in paperback and hardcover.

2. "American Yiddish Poetry," edited by Benjamin and Barbara Harshav, U.
Calif., 1986.

3. "Selected poems of Yankev Glatshteyn," translated by Richard Fein,
JPS, 1987.

4. "I keep recalling," translated by Barnett Zumoff, Ktav publishers,
1993.

I risk stepping on a hornets' nest in Mendele by this ancient bit of
literary gossip, but it may stimulate some interesting discussion.  Some
critics, more learned than I, contend that Glatshteyn (either alone or as
a composite with several others) was the prototype for Edelshtein in
Cynthia Ozick's biting short story, "Envy, or Yiddish in America."
(Found in "The Pagan Rabbi and other short stories," 1976.)  The story,
in which Isaac Bashevis Singer is transparently portrayed as Yankel
Ostrover, is (in my opinion) "must reading" for Mendelyaner interested in
the history of modern American Yiddish literature.  Related good reading
is Ruth Wisse's July 1985 essay in Commentary, entitled "The politics of
Yiddish."

Harvey Spiro

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