Constructions of 'the Jew' in English Literature and Society
Racial Representations, 1875–1945

Bryan Cheyette argues that 'the Jew' lies at the heart of modern English literature and society: not as a fixed stereotype, but as the embodiment of confusion and indeterminacy.

Bryan Cheyette (Author)

9780521558778, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 26 October 1995

320 pages
22.8 x 15.3 x 1.9 cm, 0.464 kg

'Rather than poetic licence, Cheyette relies on impressive scholarship to see well beyond the usual stereotypes of the anti-Semitic writer.' Clive Sinclair, Jewish Chronicle

Bryan Cheyette combines cultural theory, discourse analysis, and new historicism with close readings of work by Arnold, Trollope and George Eliot, Buchan and Kipling, Shaw and Wells, Belloc and Chesterton, T. S. Eliot and James Joyce, to argue that 'the Jew' lies at the heart of modern English society: not as a stereotype, but as the embodiment of confusion and indeterminacy.

1. Introduction: semitism and the cultural realm
2. The promised land of liberalism: Matthew Arnold, Anthony Trollope and George Eliot
3. Empire and anarchy: John Buchan and Rudyard Kipling
4. The 'socialism of fools': George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells
5. The limits of liberalism: Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton
6. Modernism and ambivalence: James Joyce and T. S. Eliot
7. Conclusion: semitism and the crisis of representation
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH]