Beyond King James by Robert Alter The old cliché that to translate is to betray is sometimes unfair; but not in the case of modern English…
The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov edited by Dmitri Nabokov by Robert Alter Vladimir Nabokov wrote his first short story in 1921, when he was a twenty-two-yearold Russian émigré student at Cambridge University.
The Jewish Voice by Robert Alter It has been frequently observed, by both philo-Semites and anti-Semites, that the numbers of Jews participating in the various fields…
Who Is Shylock? by Robert Alter The Merchant of Venice has inspired a certain ambivalence through much of its four-century history, and that ambivalence is sharply…
How Important Are the Dead Sea Scrolls? by Robert Alter The real mystery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is a consequence of the perishability of parchment and papyrus
Freud’s Jewish Problem by Robert Alter Freud's Moses and Monotheism is surely one of the most curious last works of a major writer.
Fiedler on the Roof, by Leslie Fiedler by Robert Alter Many readers may be put off, as I was, by the grating pun of the title, but a certain cultivated…
Harold Bloom’s by Robert Alter The well-known literary critic Harold Bloom will no doubt provoke, as he clearly intends, a storm of excitement, consternation, and…
The Future of the Jews, by David Vital by Robert Alter David Vital brings to this extended essay on Jewish national identity the virtues of clarity and cogent analysis that have…
Interpreting the Bible by Robert Alter It is a revealing symptom of our cultural malaise that for two decades our academic institutions have been shaken by…
Jewish Mysticism in Dispute by Robert Alter The daunting achievement of Gershom Scholem (1897-1982) poses a certain quandary for the evolution of subsequent scholarship. His studies of…
The Direction of Poetry, edited by Robert Richman by Robert Alter For much of our century, it has seemed that free verse, which became firmly established in English during the heyday…
