O Feuilleton: um gênero judaico e erótico

Abstract

This article discusses the Feuilleton as a specific Jewish genre of turn-of-the-century European Literature. The articulation between this kind of short story, which was an integral part of newspapers and magazines, and the social condition of Jewish writers, who had recently arrived to European metropolises from their hamlets and ghettoes, and who simultaneously belonged and did not belog to the urban scenery they portray, explains, as I argue, the originality of the viewpoints adopted  by the Feuilletonists. They are understood as being influenced by a kind of « Jewish sight », marked by multiple points of view, typical of those who are, at the same time, insiders and outsiders, and expressed by the absolute freedom of movement of their subjectivity. The paradoxes of what could be called the erotic sight of the Feuilletonists is inextricably linked to the paradoxes of Jewish emancipation and Jewish assimilation to German culture, leading to a what could be considered a kind of neo-paganism.