| Sumario: | This article examines the aesthetics of dirt in Shmuel Yosef Agnon’s writing, through the perspective of the Anthropocene. I argue that the climate crisis requires a rethinking of many aspects of human life, including the way we think about consumerism, physical objects, bodily fluids, and filth. Agnon’s writing — situated and struggling between two opposing aesthetic orders — can function as a valuable opportunity for rethinking these issues. I start with two moments of filth: The very short story “Three Sisters,” and the story about Firadeus’s father in the novel Shira. In the main part of the article, I focus on two short stories: “The Orange Peel” and “From Lodging to Lodging,” both published in the late 1930s. I argue that filth and cleanliness are central concepts for understanding the aesthetic role assigned to “the Jew” and their entrance into modernity. Agnon draws a connection between dirt and “the East” as a general category that brings together the wearers of sidelocks, the lower classes, Eastern immigrants, and the Jewish town. The pioneering option, as I demonstrate, fails to contain the dirty remnant, and likewise misses the redemption that is possibly hidden within the trash. Thus, Agnon sullies the possibility of clean literature, bringing into modern Hebrew literature Galician remnants.
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