Die Zeichen des Körpers und der Liebe: "Paris und Vienna " in der jiddischen Fassung des Elia Levita. Von Armin Schulz. Poetica, 50. Hamburg: Verlag Dr. Kovac, 2000. Pp. 100. EUR 49.95.

In the history of early Yiddish studies there has been only a handful of literary analyses not strictly defined by conventional philological conceptions. Thus when a study such as Schulz's appears, there is reason to take notice, for the author has identified several crucial issues in the narrative and focuses the eye of a trained literary scholar on them (Armin Schulz is the editor of the Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft). The idea for the study originated in a proseminar on the renaissance Yiddish epic, Pariz un Viene, at the Universität München (1999–2000). The primary motivation for the particular focus and approach derived from Maanuel Braun's "Ehe, Liebe, Freundschaft. Semantik der Vergesellschaftung im frühneuhochdeutschen Prosaroman" (Diss. München 1998–99).

Jerold C. Frakes
University of Southern California