The Spinoza of Market Street and The Ethics: An Intertextual Reading

Abstract

An intertextual reading of Isaac Bashevis Singer's masterpiece, The Spinoza of Market Street and Baruch de Spinoza's Ethics, reveals Singer's teasing of a Spinozist's dogmatic interpretation of the philosopher and an indirect criticism of the defect of the Spinozism, i.e. resorting to empty rationality by cutting off from secular life would end in nihility. It also reveals Singer's lifelong ambivalence toward Spinoza's philosophy.