Stereotypes of Jews - in Literature - English Literature

English Literature

Although Jews were expelled from England in 1290, stereotypes were so ingrained and so durable that they persisted in English society as evidenced by presentations in English literature, drama, and the visual arts during the almost four-hundred-year period when there were virtually no Jews present in the British Isles. Some of the most famous stereotypes come from English literature; these include characters such as Shylock, Fagin and Svengali. Negative stereotypes of Jews were still employed by prominent twentieth-century non-Jewish writers such as Dorothy Richardson, Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene and James Joyce.

Read more about this topic:  Stereotypes Of Jews, In Literature

Famous quotes containing the words english and/or literature:

    The English countryside, its growth and its destruction, is a genuine and tragic theme.
    —E.M. (Edward Morgan)

    The literature of the poor, the feelings of the child, the philosophy of the street, the meaning of household life, are the topics of the time. It is a great stride. It is a sign,—is it not? of new vigor, when the extremities are made active, when currents of warm life run into the hands and the feet.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)