Language:
English
Year of publication:
2002
Titel der Quelle:
ELH - English Literary History
Angaben zur Quelle:
69,3 (2002) 599-616
Keywords:
Lopez, Roderigo,
;
Jews History 1500-1800
;
Crypto-Jews
;
Sephardim
;
Jewish literature History and criticism
Abstract:
Notes the execution of Queen Elizabeth's Jewish physician Roderigo Lopez and the antisemitism it stirred up as the suggested background and prototype for Marlowe's "The Jew of Malta" and for "The Merchant of Venice." Discusses the national and religious identity of the Portuguese Marrano doctor, who was implicated in an Anglo-Spanish conspiracy to assassinate the Queen. Argues that some aspects of English antisemitism stem from transposed anti-Hispanic racism. Thus, anti-Spaniardism and the confusion of Portuguese with Spaniards negatively affected Elizabethan attitudes toward Marranos living in England. Englishmen were also jealous of the Marranos' commercial ties. One way to share such opportunities was via marrying a Marrano, as in William Haughton's comedy "Englishmen for My Money" (ca. 1598). The "Portuguese" merchant-usurer in this play, who has traits that are stereotypically Jewish, turns out to be a Marrano. His daughters, like Shylock's Jessica, end up marrying Christians.
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