Piękna Żydówka czyta Mohorta. Przyczynek do spisu lektur toksycznych

Abstract

A beautiful Jewess reads Mohort. An essay about the list of toxic readings

The article focuses on the interpretation of a forgotten book of Wilhelm Feldman Beautiful Jewess 1877. The heroine of the story, after reading Pol’s Mohort, tries to assimilate to Polishness and later decides to leave for Lviv where, as expected, she does not find true happiness. The conclusion of the novel indicates that the mentioned heroine was, in fact, the victim of so called “toxic books”. Despite her intellectual aspirations, she constantly questions her own life choices. In Feldman’s novel beside the issue of Jewish assimilation, we can also notice a controversial enquiry concerning the existential repercussions of literary analyses.