Title: Masculinity, anti-semitism and early modern English literature : from the satanic to the effeminate Jew /
Authors: Biberman, Matthew, 1966-
Publisher: Ashgate Pub.,
Year: 2004
Subjects: English literature History and criticism; Jews in literature; Antisemitism England History; Antisemitism England History; Jews England History; Jews England History; Antisemitism in literature; Masculinity in literature.; Satanism in literature.; Sex role in literature.
Abstract: "Offering a profound re-assessment of the conceptual, rhetorical, and cultural intersections among sexuality, race and religion in English Renaissance texts, this study argues that anti-Semitism is a by-product of tensions between received Classical conceptions of masculinity and Christianity's strident critique of that ideal. Utilizing works by Shakespeare, Milton, Marlowe and others, Biberman illustrates how modern anti-Semitism develops as a way to stigmatize hypermasculine behavior, thus facilitating the transformation of the culture's gender ideal from knight to businessman. Subsequently, the function of anti-Semitic image changes from Jew-Devil to Jew-Sissy. Biberman traces this shift's repercussions, both in Renaissance culture and what followed it."--Jacket.
Contents: His stones, his daughter, and his ducats : the Jew-devil, the Jew-sissy and the theo-sexual matrix -- Madam rabbi : representations of Jewish women in English Renaissance drama -- By thee adulterous lust was driv'n from men : Donne, Milton and the rise of the Jew-sissy -- She proving false, the next I took to wife : divorce law and violence in Jonson, Cary and Milton -- He is imitating nobody, and he is inimitable : T.S. Eliot and the antisemitic aesthetics of the Milton controversy -- When king laugh come he make them all dance : the Gothic reconstitution of the Jew-devil.