Shakespeare and the Jews

James Shapiro

Published by Columbia University Press 2016

Shakespeare and the Jews

James Shapiro

https://doi.org/10.7312/shap17866

Overview
Contents

About this book

James Shapiro's unvarnished look at how Jews were portrayed in Elizabethan England challenged scholars to recognize the significance of Jewish questions in Shakespeare's day. From accounts of Christians masquerading as Jews to fantasies of settling foreign Jews in Ireland, Shapiro's work delves deeply into the cultural insecurities of Elizabethans while illuminating Shakespeare's portrayal of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. In a new preface, Shapiro reflects upon what he failed to understand about intolerance when the book was first published.

A new edition of the groundbreaking book that took full measure of how Jews were imagined in Shakespeare’s time.

Author / Editor information

James Shapiro is the Larry Miller Professor of English at Columbia University and a governor of the Folger Shakespeare Library. He is the author of several books, including The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 (2015) and 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare (2005).

Reviews

Hilton Als:
Shapiro provides a shocking overview of Elizabethan England's anti-Semitism, and shows how Shylock was shaped by that Christian nation's fears; Shakespeare's Jew conformed all too closely to his audience's expectations.

Grace Tiffany, Western Michigan University:
[Shapiro] forces us to recognize the racist underside of 'Enlightenment' politics and Shakespeare's part in the creation of an insular and xenophobic Englishness.

Richard Halpern, University of Colorado-Boulder:
Shapiro is not concerned merely with Jewish figures in Shakespeare's plays; rather, his book grapples with the much vaster questions of Jewishness and Shakespearean culture.

Eric Sterling, Auburn University:
James Shapiro couples his extensive research with insightful interpretations and ideas, creating an impressive study that will aid scholars of history, literature, and Judaism for decades to come.

Marilyn L. Williamson:
A must-read: it raises fundamental questions about literature in this era of violent bigotry and political correctness.

Andrea Solomon, University of California, Berkeley:
I plan to teach this book alongside The Merchant of Venice the next chance I get.

An outstanding example of how a literary figure can illuminate both our cultural past and our present.

Shapiro not only explodes the myth of the absent Jew but, more significantly, explores how literature conveys such notions.

Our understanding of 'Englishness' is so established by now that it is necessary to read a fine cultural historian like Shapiro to understand how fluid it once was.

A valuable approach to one of Shakespeare's most challenging and elusive masterpieces.

A repository of information about a great many matters long in need of the kind of intelligent analysis that Shapiro gives them.

A groundbreaking study of Elizabethan anti-Semitism that offers a shockingly long pedigree for Shakespeare's Shylock.

What Shapiro shows convincingly is how deeply Shakespeare's play dug into the fantasies, anxieties and pleasures of its audience.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Preface to the Twentieth Anniversary Edition Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xiii
A Note on Texts Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xvii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. False Jews and Counterfeit Christians Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	13
2. Myths, Histories, Consequences Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	43
3. The Jewish Crime Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	89
4. “The Pound of Flesh” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	113
5. The Hebrew Will Turn Christian Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	131
6. Race, Nation, or Alien? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	167
7. Shakespeare and the Jew Bill of 1753 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	225
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	231
Select Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	289
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	305

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Edition: twentieth anniversary edition
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 320
Illustrations
- Other: 15 b&w illustrations

eBook

Published: March 8, 2016
ISBN: 9780231541879