Jews in Literature

shy lock

what did he mean by this?

OP here. There's talk about Shylock being a positive character during a time when speaking out positively for the Jews would have been a bad thing indeed for one's career and reputation. And yet Shakespeare still includes the "hath not a Jew eyes" sequence. But is this really enough evidence that Shakespeare was a sympathizer? Shylock is still forced to convert at the end after all. Were the people of the time really meant to see that as a happy ending for Shylock?

>when all the jewish students stood up for Shylock unironically in your undergrad lit seminar

David Golder by Irène Nemirovsky

you're welcome

Read the Lord's bible, if you really want a book about Jews, written by Jews, user.

>exercising

gtfo

Nah, you are a faggot.

He is, indeed, a comic villain, but he is much more than that. Why would Shakespeare give him such powerful monologues? Why would Claudio make him convert to Christianity?

Shylock is not supposed to be a good guy, but the point of that monologue is that he is not an asshole because he's a jew, he is just a jew that happens to be an asshole.

>Were the people of the time really meant to see that as a happy ending for Shylock?

Yes, I think so. If you go with the reading of Shylock's representing the Old Testament's vengeful God in contrast to Claudio's standing for the new covenant of compassion and forgiveness of the New Testament, then that reading would make sense. But it is not convincing, precisely because Claudio can't possibly stand for that, nor Shylock for the other. And even if they do, that is just in the 4th act. The rest of the play does not allow that reading.

>But is this really enough evidence that Shakespeare was a sympathizer?

Does that matter, though? What do we care if Shakespeare liked Jews or not? Does it help our interpretation of the play, or rather are we looking to project an idealized image of Shakespeare, or ourselves unto that idealized Shakespeare?

It is possible that Billy Shakes never even met a Jew in his lifetime. Shylock's being an outsider by his being a Jew in a Christian society stands, I think, to convey a more universal problem: the outsider in general, and the nature of being an outsider. Who is the real outsider? What does it mean to the outsider to be an outsider? Can we blame him for retaliating against a hostile society when he himself tried to integrate, even if that society denied him a priori that opportunity? I recommend reading Harold Goddard's essay on The Merchant of Venice for this point. You can found it on The Meaning of Shakespeare. It's on LibGen too, and the rest of the essays are also excellent.

cont. in the next post

>There's talk about Shylock being a positive character during a time when speaking out positively for the Jews would have been a bad thing indeed for one's career and reputation.

Does Shakespeare portray Shylock, openly, as a "positive" character, though? I think it is more ambiguous than that. Shylock is a great character because he is not just "positive" or "negative".

By the end of the play, he is a broken man, yet Portia fails to pulverize him, as Harold Bloom would say. After Shylock's daughter runs away with some Christian fag, that is the moment he breaks. He is deprived not only of a place in society and of humanity by the other characters, but his own family denies him that. He does not know what's more important, his ducats or her daughter, not because he is a miser, but because his money allows him to participate in a society that would otherwise shun him to death (it gives him work too); his daughter, on the other hand, is possibly the only real link to another human that is similar to him and that could understand his despair. Yet she betrays him (perhaps not without reason, since Shylock seems overprotective of her daughter and his ducats, as if one were an extension of the other, though which derives from which is open to interpretation). The other Jewish character that has any lines, Tubalt, is also ambiguous towards Shylock, and he could either be helping him out of sympathy, or trying to torture his business rival (some stage interpretations decide to portray this interpretation, and the text certainly allows it: notice Tubalt's tone, and also Shylock's "Thou torturest me, Tubalt" or something similar).

But what really affects Shylock is the supposed loss of his turquoise ring, Notice the "supposed", since Tubalt himself says it is a rumor, further allowing the interpretation of Tubalt's being cruel towards Shylock. The ring is important to Shylock not for his monetary value, but because Leah, his dead wife, gave it to him before they married. He even says that he would not trade it for "a wilderness of monkeys", since her daughter traded it for one. Notice the exchange is not monetary, but rather of an animal. William Hazlitt also remarked that "wilderness" is a nice choice of words, since it is an "Hebraism", fitting for a character of Shylock talking about his Jewish roots.

And in a play where rings, marriage, and coffers made of gold and silver that contain messages (not unlike the messages that rings have in their inside face), the fact that Shylock's biggest lose is his wife's memento should not be taken lightly.

I could say more, but I would also want to hear that other's have to say about this.

That's a good point about whether or not Shakespeare's opinion matters. I mentioned Scott's Isaac too, he's different in the fact that Scott had a specific agenda when writing Isaac. The text of Ivanhoe talks extensively about the plight of the Jews, making Isaac sympathetic in his own way (even if he does use stereotypes). Does this make Isaac a weaker character than Shylock because he's intentionally made to be sympathized with? If you think "yes" (which I kind of do) is that the fault of Scott, or is it because politicized characters are inherently flat?

I have never read Ivanhoe, so I can give you an in-depth analysis.

I am not sure if a character is weaker if it is written to be sympathized with. Shylock is interesting because we don't know if we sympathize with him or not (or if Shakespeare did or not; he certainly found Shylock interesting enough to make him great). He is an ambiguous figure, and this makes him a multi-layered character. I suppose a character meant to be symphatetic can also have layers, but perhaps is it more difficult because his characterization is more straightforward.

Whether is it Scott's fault or not, I cannot say since I haven't read it. It is a different sort of character in comparison to Shylock, that is for sure. I don't think W.S. was either philosemite or anti-semite.

Politicized characters are difficult to characterize well because they have a tendency to be egocentric and thus are not allowed to have deeper character because they have an inequivocal purpose. Of course, that depends on the writer. Shakespeare also has "politicized" characters, such as his monarchs, but he didn't allow himself or his characters to stop there and become stereotypes.

You can't discuss Shylock without discusding Marlowe's Barabas. The idea behind these characters is that they are indeed stereotypes, but it all comes down to how they become these stereotypes. In a big way, the way they are seen pushes them into playing the stereotypical jew.

Aleichem and Sforim for good books written by eastern-european jews.

For understanding jewish 'religion' see Talmud and Deuteronomium, maybe the rest of Tanakh. Also Siddur if you're more interested in jewish plebs.