SOURCE: Hoffman, Anne Golomb. “Introduction to Between Exile and Return: S. Y. Agnon and the Drama of Writing, edited by Sarah Blacher Cohen, pp. 1-20. Albany: State University Press of New York, 1991.

In the following excerpt from the introduction to her full-length semiotic study of Agnon's writings, Hoffman reviews her complex textual approach, encompassing psychoanalysis, traditional Hebrew criticism, and poststructuralist literary theory. (Hoffman's book contains a complete bibliography of primary and secondary sources.)

S. Y. Agnon: Modern Jewish Writer

Each of these terms—“modern,” “Jewish,” “writer”—provides structure to this inquiry. S. Y. Agnon, the subject of my study, ranks with the major modernists of this century, but differs from his European peers in his intense engagement in a universe of sacred language. The modernism of the early part of this century consisted of a revolt against inherited norms and conventions, along with a self-conscious search for new...