Stereotypes of Jews in literature have evolved over the centuries. According to Louis Harap, nearly all European writers prior to the twentieth century projected the Jewish stereotypes in their works. Harap cites Gotthold Lessing's Nathan the Wise (1779) as the first time that Jews were portrayed in the arts as "human beings, with human possibilities and characteristics." Harap writes that, the persistence of the Jewish stereotype over the centuries suggests to some that "the treatment of the Jew in literature was completely static and was essentially unaffected by the changes in the Jewish situation in society as that society itself changed." He contrasts the opposing views presented in the two most comprehensive studies of the Jew in English literature, one by Montagu Frank Modder and the other by Edgar Rosenberg. Modder asserts that writers invariably "reflect the attitude of contemporary society in their presentation of the Jewish character, and that the portrayal changes with the economic and social changes of each decade." In opposition to Modder's "historical rationale", Rosenberg warns that such a perspective "is apt to slight the massive durability of a stereotype". Harap suggests that the recurrence of the Jewish stereotype in literature is itself one indicator of the continued presence of antisemitism among the readers of that literature.
English literature Edgar Rosenberg, American film and television producer, has characterized 'the image of the Jew in English literature' as having been "a depressingly uniform and static phenomenon". For example, 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. Dik Van Arkel notes that "Chaucer, Marlowe and Shakespeare had no direct knowledge of Jews."
The Canterbury Tales
In The Canterbury Tales, the Prioress tells a story of a devout Christian child who was murdered by Jews affronted at his singing a hymn as he passed through the Jewry, or Jewish quarter, of a city in Asia. Much later criticism focuses on the tale's antisemitism. Allen Koretsky asserts that, because the antisemitism in this tale runs counter to the generally positive image of Chaucer, it has been "ignored, excused, explained or palliated in a number of ways." Thus, a considerable body of critical and scholarly opinion holds that this speech, in the mouth of the Prioress, represents an ironic inversion of Chaucer's own sentiments; that is, the Prioress is seen as a hypocrite whose cruelty and bigotry belies her conventionally pious pose—a situation typical of the indeterminacy of Chaucer's intentions.
Elizabethan era
The character of Barabas in Christopher Marlowe's play The Jew of Malta is possibly the first ever stage-portrayal of a psychopath (at least within English literature). Barabas is portrayed taking people into confidence by playing on their desires and then killing them. Like Shakespeare's Shylock—the idea of whom may have been inspired by Barabas—he is open to interpretation as a symbol of antisemitism. However, also like Shylock, he occasionally shows evidence of humanity (albeit very rarely).
It has been suggested that The Jew of Malta influenced Shakespeare's play, The Merchant of Venice. Despite the fact that Shakespeare probably never met a Jew, The Merchant of Venice includes a character named Shylock who has become the archetype of the Jewish moneylender stereotype. Derek Cohen asserts that the Shylock character is "the best known Jew in English."
Shylock is a money-lender and was often portrayed with a hooked nose and bright red wigs. Shylock's character has been criticized for its antisemitic nature, although some interpretations of the play consider him a sympathetic figure.
Victorian era When Jews are found in Victorian fiction, they are almost always portrayed as a stereotype rather than as human beings. Literary depictions commonly drew upon long-established antisemitic tropes, presenting Jewish characters as greedy financiers, unscrupulous outsiders, or criminal figures. Such portrayals were influenced by widespread social prejudice and cultural marginalization of Jews in 19th-century Britain, where legal emancipation had not eliminated public suspicion and xenophobic attitudes.Cheyette, Bryan. Constructions of 'the Jew' in English Literature and Society: Racial Representations, 1875–1945. Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. 8–12.Sacks, David Harris. "The Widening Gyre: Religion, Culture and Politics in Britain, 1680–1850." In: Religion and Culture in Renaissance England, ed. Claire McEachern and Debora Shuger, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 304–307.
One of the most widely cited examples of the "villain Jew" stereotype appears in the character of Fagin in Charles Dickens's novel Oliver Twist (1838). Fagin is repeatedly described as morally corrupt, avaricious, and physically grotesque. In the first thirty-eight chapters of the novel, Dickens refers to him as "the Jew" more than 250 times, in contrast to only 42 uses of his proper name. Dickens later stated that his choice to identify Fagin's religion so persistently was based on his belief that, during the period depicted, such criminals were frequently Jewish. However, this explanation did not address the effect of the repeated ethnic labeling, which many critics have viewed as reinforcing antisemitic stereotypes.Cheyette, Bryan. Constructions of 'the Jew' in English Literature and Society. Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. 58–62.
Fagin’s characterization combines his role as a manipulator of children, a miser, and a grotesque figure, presenting a composite image that critics have described as one of the most influential Jewish caricatures in modern English literature. In later years, Dickens responded to public criticism by removing over 180 references to Fagin as "the Jew" in revised editions published during his lifetime.
While Dickens's later correspondence and revisions suggest an awareness of the harm caused by the portrayal, the original depiction of Fagin had already contributed significantly to the literary codification of antisemitic imagery. The figure of the villainous Jew remained common in 19th-century British literature. Though a few later authors, such as George Eliot in Daniel Deronda (1876), attempted more sympathetic portrayals of Jewish characters, these remained exceptional within the broader landscape of Victorian fiction.Valman, Nadia. The Jewess in Nineteenth-Century British Literary Culture. Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 2–3.Cheyette, Bryan. Constructions of 'the Jew' in English Literature and Society. Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 67. Some authors of this period seem to have attempted to counterbalance the negative portrayals of Jews in their earlier works with more positive images in later works. For example, in his later 1864-1865 novel Our Mutual Friend, Dickens himself presents the Jewish character Riah as a paragon of virtue. By this time, Dickens even claimed that Fagin's Jewishness was incidental to the conception of the character and this claim has been treated seriously by many literary critics. In opposition to this view, Cohen and Heller assert that Fagin's Jewishness is stressed frequently in Oliver Twist and that Dickens often refers to him as "the Jew" and that Fagin's character and physical features draw on the "long history of antisemitic associations and stereotypes to provide added resonance to Fagin's particular villainies".
George du Maurier depicts Svengali as a Jewish rogue, masterful musician, and hypnotist. The character has been portrayed in many film and television versions of the story. The word "svengali" has entered the language meaning a person who with evil intent manipulates another into doing what is desired. It is frequently used for any kind of coach who seems to exercise an extreme degree of domination over a performer (especially if the person is a young woman and the coach is an older man).
One notable exception is the character of Anton Trendelssohn, whom Anthony Trollope portrays in his novel Nina Balatka as a more deep character rather than as a Jewish stereotype.
George Eliot's novel Daniel Deronda (1876) is admired by many for having made an honest attempt to capture the essence of 19th century Judaism by presenting a sympathetic rendering of Jewish proto-Zionist and Kaballistic ideas,
20th century In 20th-century Britain, stereotypes about Jews were both pervasive and damaging, influencing literature, politics, and societal attitudes. These stereotypes often centered around a few recurring themes, such as financial control, social exclusivity, and untrustworthiness, which were not only present in public discourse but also embedded in British literature.
Literature Representations
In British literature, Jewish characters often appeared as caricatures rather than fully realized individuals. For example, T.S. Eliot's works contain numerous references to Jewish characters with negative connotations. In his poem "Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar," Eliot employs antisemitic imagery and references, depicting Jews as materialistic and cosmopolitan interlopers. Similarly, in "Gerontion," he mentions a "small house agent's clerk" who is seen as a figure of decay and degeneration, an image that feeds into antisemitic stereotypes of the time. Negative stereotypes of Jews were still employed by prominent twentieth-century non-Jewish writers as well, such as Dorothy Richardson, Virginia Woolf, Evelyn Waugh, and Graham Greene.
Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene also included problematic portrayals in their works. Waugh's portrayal of Jews in novels like Vile Bodies and A Handful of Dust often reinforced negative stereotypes, depicting Jewish characters as manipulative or greedy. Greene's literature occasionally touched on similar themes, subtly reinforcing the stereotype of Jews as schemers or morally ambiguous figures.
The protagonist in James Joyce's Ulysses, Leopold Bloom, is probably one of the most remarkable representations of Jews in Irish fiction. Bloom is the quintessential Everyman, and takes on the venerable role of Odysseus in Joyce's saga. Far from stereotypical, the depiction of his personality is one of the most detailed in literature.SparkNotes – Ulysses
Ezra Pound mentions Jewish attitudes towards money in his poem The Cantos, which focuses on the themes of economics and governance. In the poem, Jews are implicated in sinister manipulations of the money supply.Levine, Gary Martin, The merchant of modernism: the economic Jew in Anglo-American literature, Psychology Press, 2003, p 154-156 Abraham Foxman asserts that The Cantos include a "vicious diatribe against interest-paying finance" and that those sections include antisemitic passages.Foxman, p 62 In Canto 52, Pound wrote "Stinkschuld's [Rothschilds] sin drawing vengeance, poor yitts paying for / Stinkschuld [Rothschilds] / paying for a few big jews' vendetta on goyim", but the name Rothschilds was replaced by "Stinkschulds" at the insistence of Pound's publisher.Bruce, Ira Nadel, The Cambridge companion to Ezra Pound, Cambridge University Press, 1999, p 293
American literature Until the 20th century, the characterization of Jews in American literature was largely based upon the stereotypes employed in English literature. Although Jewish stereotypes first appeared in works by non-Jewish writers, after World War II it was often Jewish American writers themselves who evoked such fixed images. The prevalence of antisemitic stereotypes in the works of such authors has sometimes been interpreted an expression of self-hatred; however, Jewish American authors have also used these negative stereotypes to refute them.
19th century