The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-12-13
NEW VIEW OF SHYLOCK.
DIR. Eisenberg Delivers Lecture on
Shakespeare's Great Character.

A view of the character of Shylock
new to many, but in thorough accord
with the view taken by Sir Henry
Irving and many distinguished critics
and Shakesperian students, was given
at the Methodist church last evening
by DR.. Maurice Eisenberg of Butte.
DR.. Eisenberg has made a profound
study of this, one of the most pictur-
esque characters of the Shakesperian
drama, has prepared a scholarly but
absorbingly interesting lecture upon it,
and delivers it with rare eloquence and
lecture was an Intellectual tfeat, but
unfortunately only a small audience
was there to hear it, The audience,
however, was a cultured and highly
sympathetic and appreciative one.
The Shylock as pictured by Dr..
Eisenberg is not the cringing, fawning,
vile and inhuman Shylock of the pop
ular vew-or what was the popular
view for so many generations. Neither
is it defense of the Jew of Venice.
but might be termed a defense of
Shakespeare Dr. Eisenberg's motive
in the lecture evidently is to show that
Shakespeare did not descend to The
vulgar scheme of playing upon the IN
tolerant anti-Semitic sentiment of the
English rabble of his age by giving
it a thoroughly detestable character in
the guise of a Jew, but rather did he,
with all that marvellous skill and
| knowledge of human nature that was
| his, create Jewish character that
| showed the Jew as the Christian had
made him: that pictured the injustice
| that had been heaped upon him, the
wrongs that had been done him until
| he had been maddened into seeking to
| take a revenge commensurate with the
treatment he had received.
DR.. Eisenberg declared at the outset
that of all the cast in the Merchant
| ,f tI,e Of
tia, Shylock was the only consistent,
| heroic and admirable character Il
statement which Henry Irving has
made in even stronger words. Inc
| doctor made it clear he. was not :le-
Tending Shylock. Shylock. he said, vas
not saint, not man whose nature
was rich in the milk of human kind
| ness: neither was he devil incarnate
as some had pictured him. The key
note of the character lay in that line
of Shylock's, 1.-THE villainy you teach
me / shall execute"
In his introduction DR.. Eisenberg
Divert upon the conditions existing in
| England at the time Shakespeare wrote
the play, to show the strong anti-Sem-
itic feeling that then prevailed. He
spoke of the play "The Jew of Malta,
| written at that time, in which the
Jew was pictured as an inhuman mon
ster. play which won great applause
in England. The speaker reasoned that
this had. turned the thoughts OF
Shakespeare to the theme and had
caused him to use his arts in present
ing a human Jew, a Jew that in the
guise of the evil genius of the play
| by the very lines of it was shown tt
be its most heroic character.
In a most charming and delightful
manner the doctor sketched the play
| reading line or a passage here ans
there, dissecting the various characters
analyzing the motives. and bringing
| out the wealth of human suffering ant
| human passion there is in it until he
had built up case that seemed incon'
| troVertable.
At the close of the lecture DR.. Eisen
berg received many congratulations.