representation of Jewishness gender sexuality and the ideloogical function of the Jew in early modern texts
The figure of the Jew in early modern texts was used to highlights cultural anxieties prevalent in early modern England, primarily cultural anxieties about “Native” and “Stranger” or “Them “ and “Us”. Early modern palys such as Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta (1589) and William Shakespeare’s. ... The marginalized in these plays were predominantly the Jew and the Turk who were stimgmitized as “Other”. Marlowe and Shakespeare used the figure of the Jew to explore the notion of an English self, highlighting Elizabethan anxieties around religion, race, gender, sexuality and economic wealth and trade. Using the methodology of New Historicism, possible sources for Marlowe and Shakespeare’s plays will be examined and how these conceivable sources may have influenced the playwrights representation of the Jew. In the same manner, the sixteenth century practice of usury will be closely looked at in conjunction with the ideological function of the Jew, illustrating how both Marlowe and Shakespeare sometimes diverge from the detested stereotype hence blurring the boundaries between “Native” and “Stranger”. Martial conduct books and pamphlets will provide the backboard in the examination of gender and sexuality, showing how the submissive daughter and wife is governed in a patriarchal world which ultimately underpins male hierarchy. Similarly, female sexuality, represented in terms of the Madonna/Whore dichotomy where the chaste obedient woman is advocated and the unruly licentious woman is reviled, will be studied. ... The Christian is constructed as good, honest, and of Venice-the “Self”, whereas the Jew is constructed as bad, avaricious, a nemesis figure who is truly “Other”. Consequently, the representation of the Jew as a thorough villain “cast off from heaven” (The Merchant of Venice, II. ... However, James Shapiro ardently argues the point that: Elizabethans considered Jews to be unlike themselves in terms of religion, race, nationality and even sexuality… This he believes had a profound impact on how cultural identity was imagined or perceived. From this point, it is important to ascertain where the playwrights interpreted their concept of the Jew and how they fashioned this concept to represent the persecuted Jew as “Other”. ... In A Sermon Preached at the Christening of a Certain Jew, at London (1598), John Foxe labels them as …. ... Roderigo Lopez, a Portuguese Jew who, professing Christianity became physician, to Queen Elizabeth. ... Evidence suggesting these cultural myths can be found in The Jew of Malta where the Friar Jacomo asks Bernardine of Barabas “What, has he crucified a child”? ... Ultimately, these myths and legends were part responsible for setting up the Christian/Jew dichotomy, and it is from this cultural and historical background that Marlowe and Shakespeare created their respective plays, cleverly crafting them to reflect the cultural anxieties of their time. A broad new historicist approach involves reading the texts parallel to their historical, social and cultural contexts. The methodology of New Historicism reads literary texts as inseparable of their contexts, as texts are embedded din their historical, social and cultural contexts. It is in this light that the sources for Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta and Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice must be examined. It is important to stress however, that these works or texts might not have been necessarily read on consulted by the playwrights. ... The Jew of Malta seems to echo the Croxton Play of the Sacrament. ... Finally, the noble-hearted Turkish Jew, Gerontus, in Robert Wilson’s A Right excellent and famous Comedy called the Three Ladies of London may well have influenced the Marlovian Barabas. In the above, there are without doubt similarities which point to these earlier works as possible sources for The Jew of Malta hence, assisting in Marlowe’s conception of the Jew and the Jew’s ideological function in terms of economic practices. ... This source is of significant importance in the representation of the Jew and also significant to the emerging economic practice of Usury in Elizabethan London. The Christian’s answer to the Jew in The Orater: “Whereby is manifestly seen the antient and cruell hate which he bearith not only vnto Christians, but also vnto all others which are not of his sect” would have stirred strong anti-Semitic feelings amongst Elizabethan theatergoers, thus colouring their perception of the Jew. ... Finally, it is very likely that Marlowe’s successful portrait of Barabas, the Jewish villain, coloured Shakespeare’s conception of a Jew. ... These possible sources for Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta and Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice may very well have presented the playwrights with themes and ideas which they in turn could have borrowed directly or altered slightly. Consequently, these sources ultimately assisted in shaping and crafting the playwright’s perception and in turn their representation of the Jew, gender and sexuality whilst also exploiting the abundant wealth of Jews, a wealth obtained through the practice of usury. In understanding the concept of the Jew in the sixteenth century, it is of paramount importance to understand the practice of usury. ... In The Merchant of Venice the practice of usury helps to set up the Christian/Jew dichotomy. Shylock, the Jew, is a usurer who makes profits on the interest he charges on his money lending, what he calls “my well-won thrift” (I. ... Laurence Lerner believes the power of The Merchant of Venice is in: Its brilliant portrayal of the racial characteristics of the Eastern Jew and the contrast with the nobility of the Christian Merchant, ‘the royal merchant who loved money not for its own sake but in order to help his friends, who in order to put it in the service of life is willing to renounce everything. ... This clever technique by Marlowe further compounds Barabas’s negative representation. ... Barabas asserts in the opening act that he would rather be a hated Jew than a poor Christian.