Jews in European literature (representations and stereotypes)

European literature produced, from the Middle Ages to the modern period, a rich imaginary of the Jew, oscillating between hostile stereotypes and attempts at nuanced representation. Figures such as the Shylock of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice or Marlowe's Barabas crystallized clichés associated with usury and religious otherness. Conversely, Enlightenment works such as Lessing's Nathan the Wise sought to promote tolerance through the figure of the Jew. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, novelists and playwrights continued to explore these representations, at times reproducing prejudices and at other times contesting them. The analysis of this body of work illuminates both the history of anti-Jewish stereotypes and the evolution of relations between Jews and European Christian societies.

Sources & resources

• Encyclopaedia Judaica — 2e éd., Keter/Macmillan