Language:
English
Year of publication:
1998
Titel der Quelle:
Renaissance Quarterly
Angaben zur Quelle:
51,1 (1998) 128-162
Keywords:
Marlowe, Christopher,
;
Shakespeare, William,
;
Jewish literature History and criticism
;
Antisemitism in literature
;
English literature History and criticism
;
Antisemitism History 1500-1800
;
Crypto-Jews
;
Jews in literature
;
Judaism in literature
Abstract:
Contends that it was Marlowe's "The Jew of Malta" and Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" which forged the stereotype of the Jew for the English theater of the following centuries. The Marrano, a person whose national and religious identity is unstable and multiple, whose status is self-created and not inherited, who is associated with novel or controversial enterprises like foreign trade and moneylending, was the only real Jew available in the England of the 1590s. Such a Jew provided a convenient figure for expression of anxiety about cultural change and a fluid sense of self brought about by the Renaissance. Shows that other representations of the Jew widespread in the same period - the theological Jew, an exotic Jew abroad, the usurer, Roderigo Lopez (Queen Elizabeth's traitorous physician) - are much less negative than those created by the playwrights. Marlowe and Shakespeare played a central role in creating the frightening yet comic Jewish figure which haunts Western culture.
Note:
On the view of the Jew in 16th century England, and especially in the theater, focusing on Marlowe's and Shakespeare's plays.
URL:
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