British History - Religious Aspects, Literary Criticism - General & Miscellaneous, Antisemitism, Europe - Ethnic & Race Relations, 18th Century British History - Georgian Era (1715-1837), Jewish History - Europe - General & Miscellaneous, Popular Culture

Anti-Semitic Stereotypes

Name: Anti-Semitic Stereotypes
Author: Professor Frank Felsenstein
ISBN: 9780801849039

by Professor Frank Felsenstein

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Overview

"The Jew of the eighteenth-century imagination," writes Frank Felsenstein, "threatens to overturn and confound the fabric of the social order ... He is the perpetual outsider whose unsettling presence serves to define the bounds that separate the native Englishman from the alien Other. But his alterity is not confined to his imaginative representation. In law, the Jew and the infidel are deemed (according to the famous seventeenth-century jurist Lord Coke) 'perpetui inimici, perpetual enemies ..., for between them, as with the devils, whose subjects they be, and the Christian there is a perpetual hostility, and can be no peace.'" In Anti-Semitic Stereotypes Felsenstein focuses on English cultural attitudes toward Jews during what is known as the "longer" eighteenth century, from roughly 1660 through 1830. He describes the persistence through the period of certain negative biases that, in many cases, can be traced back at least to the late Middle Ages. Felsenstein finds evidence of these biases in a wide range of primary sources - chapbooks, ephemeral pamphlets, tracts, jets books, prints, folklore, proverbial expressions, and so on, as well as in the products of higher culture. With the advent of the nineteenth century, however, he sees a gradual development of more liberal attitudes in English society, "inchmeal evidence of the loosening hold upon the collective imagination of medieval beliefs concerning the Jews."

About the Author, Professor Frank Felsenstein

Frank Felsenstein was Reader in Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of Leeds and is now teaching in the united States.

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Editorials

Booknews

Studies English cultural attitudes toward Jews, drawing on a wide range of primary sources collected in both British and American libraries. Explores persistent stereotypes and negative biases (some of which harken back to at least the Middle Ages) and discusses what those persistent beliefs reveal about English culture more broadly. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

James Shapiro

Felsenstein's book shows just how widespread and persistent...stereotyping was and makes available for further analysis a considerable amount of new information, especially pictorial evidence, which he analyzes brilliantly.
— Shakespeare Quarterly

Times Literary Supplement

Intelligent and informative. Two aspects are especially valuable. [Felsenstein] makes more extensive use than previous writers of ephemeral literature—tracts, periodicals, chapbooks, sermons, and so forth; and he analyses pictorial evidence, which in practice means satirical prints, with as much care as the written word.

— John Gross

Shakespeare Quarterly

Felsenstein's book shows just how widespread and persistent... stereotyping was and makes available for further analysis a considerable amount of new information, especially pictorial evidence, which he analyzes brilliantly.

— James Shapiro

Notes and Queries

Felsenstein's enormously absorbing, fluent yet provocative study ultimately questions the defeat of the image of Jewish 'Otherness'... If the traditional Whig version of history would point towards the triumph of a cosy English tolerance, Felsenstein's study provides powerful support to those scholars of minorities in Britain who would point to the persistence of prejudice.

— Mark Levene

The Age of Johnson

A luminous and scholarly survey of a familiar subject from a fresh perspective.

— Michael Shinagel

Albion

An excellent example of intelligent, learned, and informative cultural history.

— Vincent Carretta

Times Literary Supplement

— John Gross

Shakespeare Quarterly

Felsenstein's book shows just how widespread and persistent... stereotyping was and makes available for further analysis a considerable amount of new information, especially pictorial evidence, which he analyzes brilliantly.

— James Shapiro