While

Henderson the Rain King

(1959) begins to focus Bellow’s intellectual quarrel with modernism and the social sciences,

Herzog

(1964) extends the critique to the entire modern philosophical tradition.

Herzog

is a massive intellectual accomplishment that has repeatedly been likened to Joyce’s

Ulysses

. It remains Bellow’s acknowledged masterwork and was on the

New York Times

best-seller list for the entire year. The plot of the novel is slender. Herzog leaves his home and marriage, fails in the classroom, abandons his academic project, and undertakes a massive spiritual and intellectual housekeeping via the production of dozens of letters to God, the long dead, the recently dead, and the living. Its form clearly derives from the 18th century epistolary novel. Moses Herzog,…

664 words

Citation: Cronin, Gloria. "Herzog". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 November 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4768, accessed 19 March 2024.]

4768 Herzog 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.