Reality and its Refraction in Descriptions of Women in Haskalah Fiction

Abstract

This chapter analyses the depiction of women in nineteenth-century Haskalah literature, demonstrating just how gender-specific this was. Haskalah literature was written by men for a male audience, and the maskilim were taken by surprise when women readers and writers began to appear in the 1860s. The chapter then outlines two extremes of the literary image of women. On the one hand is the idealized depiction of the goddess or angel. On the other hand is the critical depiction of the insensitive, crass, and domineering woman. Both of these images derive from literary conventions. The chapter examines the interplay of these conventions with the social experience and social agenda of the maskilim.