Di Yunge
Di Yunge (Yiddish: די יונגע) was a group of young Yiddish-speaking poets and writers in New York at the beginning of the 20th century, whose members represented positions of literary modernism .
The group emerged in opposition to the pathetic rhetoric of the so-called Sweatshop Poets (for example: Factory Hell Poets). In response to the poor living conditions of the immigrant Jewish working class and the effects of the secularization of Jewish immigrants in America, their poetry was determined by didactic poetry that preached class consciousness and class struggle. This poetry had inherited little from the tradition of earlier Yiddish literature, and its poetic language was influenced by "daytshmerish" , a highly Germanized Yiddish that many considered "modern".
Di Yunge was created in contrast to this type of poetry, which she viewed as inferior. What the poets of this new generation had in common was a common aversion. Many of them took the aestheticist standpoints of l'art pour l'art , but regardless of the standpoint of the individual members of the Di Yunge group on the autonomy of art , they advocated a type of poetry that endeavored to refine poetic language beautify.
Di Yunge marked the beginning of serious modern Yiddish literature in the United States. These new poets created poetry in the styles of Neo-Romanticism, Impressionism, and Symbolism, making them the first representatives of literary modernism in American Yiddish literature.
Di Yunge did not advocate a uniform literary concept: while the group agreed on what they rejected in Yiddish literature, they were often divided on what they wanted. Hence, this group never became a coherent entity, but rather a group of writers in constant feud over literary issues.
Politically, the group predominantly represented radical left positions. In addition to the publication of various individual editions and anthologies, the group published in the communist newspaper Frayhayt and the anarchist newspaper Free Workers Voice .
Important members of the Di Yunge group were the poets Moyshe-Leyb Halpern , H. Leivick , Zishe Landau , Mani Leib and the writers David Ignatoff and Isaac Raboy .
literature
- Marc Miller: The persona "Moyshe-Leyb" in the poetry of ML Halpern . National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, Ottawa 1997, ISBN 0-612-19909-6 , ( Canadian theses = Thèses canadiennes ), (Thesis, Montreal, McGill University, 1996).
- Paul Buhle: The Yiddish poets of di Yunge . In: Franklin Rosemont (ed.): Arsenal. Surrealist Subversion . Black Swan Press, Chicago IL 1989, pp. 156-160.
- Ruth R. Wisse : A Little Love in Big Manhattan. Two Yiddish Poets . Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 1988, ISBN 0-674-53659-2 .
- Ruth R. Wisse: Di Yunge and the Problem of Jewish Aestheticism . In: Jewish Social Studies 38, 1976, No. 3/4, ISSN 0021-6704 , pp. 265-276.
- Dan Miron : Di Yunge. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 2: Co-Ha. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02502-9 , pp. 114–118.