JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

english literature
to social and historical themes. However, Isaac *Rosenberg
wrote a Nietzschean drama, Moses (1916).
IMPACT OF JEWISH PHILOSOPHY AND MYSTICISM. In the
general abandonment of medieval Christian authorities during
the Reformation, there was a certain tendency to look to
the medieval Jewish philosophers and exegetes for guidance.
The thinking of writers like John, Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667),
and the “Cambridge Platonists” was in part shaped by the
Bible and by Maimonides. The Platonist poet Henry More
(1614–1687) drew heavily on both Philo and Maimonides,
and made frequent reference to the Kabbalah. Like many
other English writers of his time, More had, however, only a
very imperfect idea of what the Kabbalah contained. Two earlier
writers whose works contain kabbalistic allusions are the
Rabelaisian satirist Thomas Nash and Francis Bacon. Nash’s
Pierce Pennilesse His Supplication to the Divell (1592), a humorous
discourse on the vices and customs of the day, draws
from the Christian Kabbalah; while Bacon’s The New Atlantis
(1627) describes the utopian Pacific island of Bensalem, where
the Jewish colonists have a college of natural philosophy called
“Solomon’s House” and are governed by rules of kabbalistic
antiquity. Genuine kabbalistic motifs, admittedly obtained at
second hand, are to be found in the late 18th century in the
works of William Blake. His notion of the sexual inner life
of his divine “Emanations” and “Specters” is at least partially
kabbalistic, while his portrait of the “Giant Albion” is explicitly
derived from the kabbalistic notion of the Adam Kadmon
(“Primal Man”). Kabbalistic notions and images later played a
part in the occult system employed by W.B. Yeats (1865–1939)
in his poetry; and in the mid-20th century the Kabbalah acquired
a considerable vogue, exemplified by the poetry of Nathaniel
*Tarn and by Riders in the Chariot (1961), a novel by
the Australian writer Patrick White.
The Figure of the Jew
Jews were expelled from England in 1290, and the great medieval
English works in which Jews were portrayed, notably
John Gower’s Confessio Amantis (c. 1390), William Langland’s
The Vision of Piers Plowman (three versions c. 1360–1400),
and Geoffrey *Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale (one of the Canterbury
Tales, c. 1390) were all composed about a century later. The figure
of the Jew was therefore almost certainly not drawn from
life, but rather from imagination and popular tradition, the
latter a mixture of prejudice and idealization. This approach is
not untypical of medieval writing generally, which often used
stereotypes and symbols and gave them concrete shape. The
evil stereotype of the Jew is clearly based on the Christian account
of the crucifixion of Jesus, including his betrayal by Judas
(identified with the Jew in general) and his often-stated
enmity toward the Jewish scribes and Pharisees. This provided
the basis for the image of the Jew in the early mystery
or “miracle” plays, current from the 13th century, which presented
the Bible records in dramatic form. A contemporary
touch was sometimes added by representing Judas as a Jewish
usurer. There is an historical link between the dramatizing of
the Crucifixion and the rise of the *blood libel, which reached
its culmination in the notorious case of *Hugh of Lincoln
(1255). This accusation became the subject of several horrific
early poems, including the old Scottish ballad of “The Jew’s
Daughter,” reproduced in Percy’s Reliques. In this ballad the
story is slightly varied, the ritual murder being committed by
a young Jewess. Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale, a story of child murder
committed by Jews, explicitly refers the reader to the case
of Hugh of Lincoln a hundred years earlier, the suggestion being
that the killing of Christian children by Jews was habitual.
Echoes of these medieval fantasies continue to be heard down
the centuries, and they provide the starting point for Christopher
*Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta (c. 1589) and for Shakespeare’s
The Merchant of Venice (c. 1596). Both Marlowe’s Barabas
and Shakespeare’s Shylock obviously delight in the murder
of Christians either by knife or by poison, a partial reflection
of the charges leveled at the trial of the unfortunate Marrano
physician Roderigo *Lopez. The stage Jew down to the Elizabethan
period looked rather like the Devil in the old mystery
plays, and was very often dressed in a similar costume: this explains
why, in Shakespeare’s play, Launcelot Gobbo describes
Shylock as “the very devil incarnation,” while Solanio sees him
as the devil come “in the likeness of a Jew.”
THE DUAL IMAGE. The Jew, however, aroused not only fear
and hatred but also awe, and even admiration. Thus the medieval
imagination had room not only for Judas, but also for
heroic Old Testament figures such as Isaac and Moses. There
is no doubt that the Israelites at the Red Sea in the old mysteries
were also clearly identified as Jews. *Judah Maccabee
(another Judas) was one of the famous Nine Worthies of early
legend, along with David and Joshua. Shakespeare, who refers
to the Jews in seven of his plays, draws on this tradition
in the closing scene of his comedy, Love’s Labour’s Lost. Another
early Christian tradition which carries undertones of
admiration and awe is that of the *Wandering Jew. Ahasuerus,
as he is sometimes called, in the early ballads was a “cursed
shoemaker” who churlishly refused to allow Jesus to rest on
a stone when he was on his way to Golgotha, and for this was
made to wander the world forever. As the Jew who lives on
eternally to testify to the salvation offered to the world, he is
by no means an unsympathetic figure. In later romantic literature,
particularly in poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley (Queen
Mab, 1813) and Wordsworth (“Song for the Wandering Jew,”
1800), he finally symbolizes universal wisdom and experience.
The anonymous interlude Jacob and Esau (first published in
1568) includes acting directions which state that the players
“are to be considered to be Hebrews, and so should be apparalled
with attire.” Thus, both Jacob the saint and his brother
Esau, the lewd ruffian, are clearly Jews. The portrait of the Jew
therefore becomes ambiguous: he is both hero and villain, angel
and devil. There is more of the devil than the angel in the
early portraits, but the balance varies. What is lacking is the
middle, neutral ground of everyday reality, for little attempt
is made to visualize the Jew in his ordinary environment. It
434 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6