Editing Isaac Bashevis Singer (section)

===Literary influences===
[[File:Dan Hadani collection (990044399930205171) (cropped).jpg|thumb|Singer in 1969]]
Singer had many literary influences. Besides the religious texts he studied, he grew up with a rich array of Jewish folktales and worldly Yiddish detective-stories about Max Spitzkopf and his assistant Fuchs by [[Jonas Kreppel]].{{Sfn | Tree | 2004 | p = 35}} He read Russian, including [[Dostoyevsky]]'s ''[[Crime and Punishment]]'' at the age of fourteen.{{Sfn|Singer|1963}} He wrote in memoirs about the importance of the Yiddish translations donated in book-crates from America, which he studied as a teenager in Bilgoraj: "I read everything: Stories, novels, plays, essays... I read [[Avrom Reyzen|Rajsen]], [[Strindberg]], Don Kaplanowitsch, [[Turgenev]], [[Tolstoy]], [[Maupassant]] and [[Chekhov]]."{{Sfn|Singer|1963}} He studied the philosophers [[Spinoza]],{{Sfn|Singer|1963}} [[Arthur Schopenhauer]],{{Sfn | Carr | 1992}} and [[Otto Weininger]].{{Sfn | Tree | 2004 | p = 68}} Among his Yiddish contemporaries, Singer considered his elder brother to be his greatest artistic example. He was also a life-long friend and admirer of the author and poet [[Aaron Zeitlin]].

His short stories, which some critics feel contain his most lasting contributions,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Searls |first=Damion |date=September 1, 2012 |title=A Guide to Isaac Bashevis Singer |url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/a-guide-to-isaac-bashevis-singer/ |access-date=2022-04-27 |website=Los Angeles Review of Books |language=en |quote=The opinion seems to have hardened into indisputable fact that Singer's stories are better than his novels, but I'm not convinced.}}</ref> were influenced by [[Anton Chekhov]] and [[Guy de Maupassant]]. From Maupassant, Singer developed a finely grained sense of drama. Like those of the French master, Singer's stories can pack enormous visceral excitement in the space of a few pages.{{citation needed|date=May 2014}} From Chekhov, Singer developed his ability to draw characters of enormous complexity and dignity in the briefest of spaces.{{citation needed|date=May 2014}} In the foreword to his personally selected volume of his finest short stories, Singer describes Chekhov, Maupassant, and "the sublime scribe of the [[Joseph (Genesis)|Joseph]] story in the Book of Genesis" as the masters of the short story form.{{sfn|Singer|1982|p=vii}}

Of his non-Yiddish-contemporaries, he was strongly influenced by the writings of [[Knut Hamsun]], many of whose works he later translated, while he had a more critical attitude towards [[Thomas Mann]], whose approach to writing he considered opposed to his own.{{Sfn | Tree | 2004 | p = 88}} Contrary to Hamsun's approach, Singer shaped his world not only with the egos of his characters, but also from Jewish moral tradition embodied by his father in the stories about Singer's youth. There was a dichotomy between the life his heroes lead and the life they feel they should lead—which gives his art a modernity his predecessors did not express. Singer's stories often involve highly individualist and anti-conformist characters rebelling alone against society. In a 1974 interview, Singer stated that "every human being, if he is a real, sensitive human being, feels quite isolated. It is only the people with very little individuality who always feel that they belong." He added that "Since I believe that the purpose of literature is to stress individuality, I also, unwillingly, stress human lonesomeness".<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Gilman |first1=Sander L. |last2=Singer |first2=Isaac Bashevis |date=1974 |title=Interview: Isaac Bashevis Singer |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/464611 |journal=Diacritics |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=30–33 |doi=10.2307/464611 |jstor=464611 |issn=0300-7162}}</ref>

Singer's themes of witchcraft, mystery and legend draw on traditional sources, but they are contrasted with a modern and ironic consciousness. They are also concerned with the bizarre and the grotesque.{{citation needed|date=May 2014}}

An important strand of his art is intra-familial strife, which he experienced when taking refuge with his mother and younger brother at his uncle's home in Biłgoraj. This is the central theme in Singer's family chronicles such as ''The Family Moskat'' (1950), ''The Manor'' (1967), and ''The Estate'' (1969). Some critics believe these show the influence of Thomas Mann's novel ''[[Buddenbrooks]]''; Singer had translated Mann's ''Der Zauberberg'' (''[[The Magic Mountain]]'') into Yiddish as a young writer.