The Role of Nonliterary Genres in the Consolidation of Modern Hebrew Literary Realism

How was one to represent modern Jewish reality in Hebrew at a time when most aspects of modern Jewish existence were conducted in other languages? This conundrum preoccupied Hebrew writers in the nineteenth century in their attempts to formulate a modern literary idiom from an ancient language that lacked a vocabulary and registers for conveying the nuances of everyday life in rapidly transforming Jewish communities. Drawing on the theoretical framework of Yurii Tynianov and his concept of “literary fact,” this chapter examines the interplay between nonliterary and literary forms of Hebrew writing in the nineteenth century. By looking at how Hebrew authors adjusted nonliterary genres rooted in Hebrew discursive traditions – such as rabbinic responsa, hagiography, travelogues, letters, and especially commercial literature – the chapter highlights experimental devices and modes of representation that preconditioned the emergence of modern Hebrew literary realism. Moreover, it claims that the main difference between the development of Hebrew and established European literatures was the absence of a unified bureaucratic language, compensated by the prominence of commercial discourse in both Hebrew nonliterary and literary spheres. This discourse enriched the linguistic possibilities for describing modern Jewish reality and drew a larger audience into the Hebrew cultural universe.