Sprache:
Englisch
Erscheinungsjahr:
2014
Titel der Quelle:
Gal-Ed; on the History of the Jews in Poland
Angaben zur Quelle:
24 (2014) 45-61
Schlagwort(e):
Antisemitism in literature
;
Jews in literature
;
Polish fiction History and criticism 19th century
;
Polish fiction History and criticism 20th century
Kurzfassung:
The period of 1880-1939 was marked by a deterioration in Polish-Jewish relations. While high literature mostly remained faithful to the ideals of Jewish assimilation and acculturation, popular prose increasingly accentuated the Jews' foreignness. Romantic novels, focusing on love stories, became vehicles of expression of antisemitic and racist ideas; they expressed doubts concerning the assimilability of Jews, and stressed their destructive influence on Poland. Prominent among their themes was the inadvisability of Poles and Jews entering into relationships with one another, and especially into mixed marriages. Notes two main patterns in the plots of such novels, calling them "Beauty and the Beast" and "La belle juive". The first are stories in which a Polish woman marries a repulsive Jewish man in order to save her family from destitution. The "belle juive" plot describes a beautiful and demonic Jewess who lures a naïve Polish man into working for Jewish or German interests to the detriment of Poland. Examines a number of popular novels built on these themes.
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