Autonomy and Dialogicity in Isaac Bashevis Singer’s The Penitent
The Ethics of Literary Communication (2013), 115-128
When Isaac Bashevis Singer published The Penitent in 1983, the short novel was met with harsh criticism from the likes of Harold Bloom and Peter S. Prescott. Putting forth a participatory Aristotelian response to the novel, I suggest that disparaging readings of the novel often exhibit the very kind of reductivism of which they accuse the main character – and sometimes also the historical author. . .
