investigator, the important thing is the advance of ideas.

* * * * *

The object of the writer in presenting this essay to the public was not
to presume to give a detailed exposition of the development of modern
Hebrew literature, accomplishing itself under the most complex of social
and political conditions and in a social _milieu_ totally unknown
to the public at large. That would have led too far. It was not even
possible to give an adequate idea of all the authors requiring mention
within the limited frame adopted perforce. Besides, nothing or almost
nothing existed in the way of monographs that might have facilitated the
task. [Footnote: In point of fact, all that can be cited are the
following: the admirable biographical essays on Mapu, Smolenskin, etc.,
by Reuben Brainin; those of S. Bernfeld on Rapoport, etc., these two
critics writing in Hebrew; and the sketch of our subject by M. Klausner,
in the Russian language. Besides, mention may be made of an article in
the _Revue des Revues_, by M. Ludvipol, of Paris. In spite of the
diversity of schools and the conditions giving rise to them, which are
here to be treated for the first time from the point of view of a modern
history of literature, the reader will readily convince himself that the
subject lacks neither coherence nor unity. It is superfluous to say that
in this first attempt at a history of modern Hebrew literature, the
grouping of movements and schools borrowed from the Occidental
literatures is bound to have only relative value.]

The aim set up by the present writer is merely to follow up the various
stages through which modern Hebrew literature has passed, to deduce and
specify the general principles that have moulded it, and analyze the
literary and social value of the works produced by the representative