Sprache:
Englisch
Erscheinungsjahr:
2002
Titel der Quelle:
German Quarterly
Angaben zur Quelle:
75,2 (2002) 160-180
Schlagwort(e):
Grillparzer, Franz,
;
Antisemitism in literature
Kurzfassung:
Examines the rhetorical structure of Grillparzer's play, showing that the text shapes the Jew, sets the Jew in a frame, and concocts a false charge against the Jew, making the Jew the victim of a frame-up. Set in the 12th century, the play deals with the fabrication that King Alfonso VIII's humiliating defeat at the Battle of Alarcos in 1195 was divine retribution for his amorous involvement with a Jewish woman from Toledo, Rahel. The text pits philosemitism against antisemitism repeatedly. Examines the play in the context of the period in which it was written, post-1848 Austria (it was written in 1851, but first published posthumously in 1872), where Jews were accused of disproportionate representation in the revolutionary movement. "Die Jüdin von Toledo" presents a complex critique of the Jewish emancipation debate. Although it makes some attempt to present Jews in a positive light, these gestures are undercut on all levels of the text, which describes the Jews as destroyers of the state and of the social order by being boundary-breakers - sexually, religiously, and politically. In short, the play has a discernable anti-Jewish bias, narrating a subtextual story about the cataclysmic dangers of allowing Jews into Christian society.
Anmerkung:
Appeared in German in her collected articles "Das unerhörte Wort" (2013) 206-242.
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
Permalink