Masculinity, Anti-Semitism and Early Modern English Literature: From the Satanic to the Effeminate Jew.

275 Pages·2017·12.64 MB·English

by  Biberman

MASCULINITY, ANTI-SEMITISM AND
EARLY MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE
Women and Gender in the Early
Modem World
Series Editors: Allyson Poska and Abby Zanger
In the past decade, the study of women and gender has offered some
of the most vital and innovative challenges to scholarship on the early modern
period. Ashgate’s new series of interdisciplinary and compararitive studies, ‘Woman
and Gender in the Early Modern World’, takes up this challenge, reaching beyond
geographical limitations to explore the experiences of early modern women and the
nature of gender in Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa. Submissions of single­
author studies and edited collections will be considered.
Titles in this series include:
Printing and Parenting in Early Modern England
Edited by Douglas A. Brooks
‘Shall She Famish Then?’
Female Food Refusal in Early Modern England
Nancy A. Gutierrez
Staging Slander and Gender in Early Modern England
Ina Habermann
Midwiving Subjects in Shakespeare’s England
Caroline Bicks
Subordinate Subjects
Gender, the Political Nation, and Literary Form in England, 1588-1688
Mihoko Suzuki
Poetic Resistance
English Women Writers and the Early Eodern Lyric
Pamela S. Hammons
Masculinity, Anti-Semitism and
Early Modem English Literature
From the Satanic to the Effeminate Jew
MATTHEW BIBERMAN
University of Louisville, USA
O Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 2004 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © Matthew Biberman 2004
The author has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to
be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
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for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Biberman, Matthew
Masculinity, anti-semitism and early modem English literature : from the satanic to the
effeminate Jew. - (Women and gender in the early modem world)
1. English literature - Early modem, 1500-1700 - History and criticism 2. Jews in
literature 3. Antisemitism in literature 4. Misogyny in literature 5. Masculinity in
literature
I. Title
820’. 9’3528296’0903
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Biberman, Matthew, 1966-
Masculinity, anti-semitism and early modem English literature : from the
satanic to the effeminate Jew / Matthew Biberman.
p. cm. - (Women and gender in the early modem world)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7546-5045-6 (alk. paper)
1. English literature - Early modem, 1500-1700 - History and criticism. 2. Jews
in literature. 3. Antisemitism - England - History - 16th century. 4.
Antisemitism - England - History -17th century. 5. Jews - England - History -
16th century. 6. Jews - England - History - 17th century. 7. Antisemitism in
literature. 8. Masculinity in literature. 9. Satanism in literature. 10. Sex role in
literature. I. Title. II. Series.
PR151.J5B53 2004
820.9’3529924—dc22
2004005394
ISBN 13: 978-0-7546-5045-4 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-1-138-25797-9 (pbk)
This book is for
Martha and Lucy
One of the lessons of the Hitler period is the stupidity of cleverness. How many
were the expert arguments with which Jews dismissed the likelihood of Hitler’s
rise, when it was already as clear as daylight.
Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno
Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments
The true God hates us, but we have dreamed up an idol who loves us and has made
us His chosen people. You said it yourself: The Gentiles makes gods of stone and
we of theories.’
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Enemies, A Love Story
Contents
List of Illustrations viii
List of Figures x
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction 1
1 ‘His stones, his daughter, and his ducats’:
The Jew-Devil, the Jew-Sissy and the Theo-Sexual Matrix 7
2 ‘Madam Rabbi’: Representations of Jewish Women
in English Renaissance Drama 49
3 ‘By thee adulterous lust was driv’n from men’:
Donne, Milton and the Rise of the Jew-Sissy 71
4 ‘She proving false, the next I took to wife’:
Divorce Law and Violence in Jonson, Cary and Milton 101
5 ‘He is imitating nobody, and he is inimitable’:
T. S. Eliot and the Antisemitic Aesthetics
of the Milton Controversy 121
6 ‘When King Laugh come he make them all Dance’:
The Gothic Reconstitution of the Jew-Devil 147
Conclusion 181
Appendix: Theories of Antisemitism 193
Notes 197
Works Cited 233
Index 253
List of Illustrations
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane playbill announcing
The Merchant of Venice with Edmund Kean in the role of
Shy lock, reproduced from the author’s collection.
Jew by Well, Pierre Boaistuau, Certaine Secrete
Wonders of Nature, trans. Edward Fenton (London, 1569),
by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Macbeth and the three weird women, Raphael Holinshed,
Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande
(London, 1577), by permission of the Houghton Library,
Harvard University.
Title page of Gad ben Arad, pseud., The Wandering
Jew Telling Fortunes to English-men (London, 1640),
by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Satan flanked by Jews, Pierre Boaistuau, Certaine
Secrete Wonders of Nature, trans. Edward Fenton
(London, 1569), by permission of the Houghton Library,
Harvard University.
Monster, Pierre Boaistuau, Certaine Secrete Wonders
of Nature, trans. Edward Fenton (London, 1569),
by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Monster Child, Pierre Boaistuau, Certaine Secrete
Wonders of Nature, trans. Edward Fenton (London, 1569),
by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.
‘A Merchant Jew,’ Nicolas de Nicolay, The Navigations
into Turkie, trans. T. Washington (London, 1585), by
permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Prophetien Vervullingen, ca, 1700, courtesy of the Harvard
Map collection, Harvard College Library.
‘Merchant of Venice,’ drawn by Thurston and engraved
by Ridley in One Hundred Plates Illustrative of The
Principal Scenes in Shakespeare’s Plays (London,
1819), reproduced from the author’s collection.
List of Illustrations
‘A Maiden Jew of Andrinople,’ Nicolas de Nicolay,
The Navigations into Turkie, trans. T. Washington
(London, 1585). This item is reproduced by permission
of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
The Merchant and His Daughter,’ drawn by Nash and
engraved by C. Rolls in The Dramatic Works of
Shakespeare, ed. George Stevens (London, 1802).
This item is reproduced by permission of The Huntington
Library, San Marino, California.
The Merchant of Venice,’ engraving, by He wet, executed
after designs by others in Shakespeare’s Plays: With His
Life, ed. Gulian C. Verplack (New York: 1847). This item
is reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library,
San Marino, California.
Detail from Hierosolima Sancta Dei-Civitas. Leyden: Henry
Haestens, 1598, courtesy of the Harvard Map collection, Harvard
College Library.
William Hogarth, ‘A Harlot’s Progress,’ engraving (1732).
This item is reproduced by permission of The Huntington
Library, San Marino, California.
Johann Heinrich Ramberg, Charles Macklin as ‘Shylock,’
engraving, in Henry Barton Baker, English Actors (1879).
This item is reproduced by permission of The Huntington
Library, San Marino, California.
Henry Irving in the character of ‘Mathias,’ unsigned sketch,
ca. 1900, reproduced from the author’s collection.
‘Irving as Shylock,’ print, ca. 1900, reproduced
from the author’s collection.
Mr. Beerbohm as ‘Svengali,’ T. C. Turner, London & Hull,
postcard, ca. 1900. This item is reproduced by permission of
The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
‘Albert Basserman als ‘Shylock’,’ German postcard,
ca. 1910. This item is reproduced by permission of The
Huntington Library, San Marino, California.