Shakespeare and the Jews

James Shapiro

Going against the grain of the dominant scholarship on the period, which generally ignores the impact of Jewish questions in early modern England, James Shapiro presents how Elizabethans imagined Jews to be utterly different from themselves––in religion, race, nationality, and even sexuality. From strange cases of Christians masquerading as Jews to bizarre proposals to settle foreign Jews in Ireland, this book looks into the crisis of cultural identity in Elizabethan England and sheds new light on The Merchant of Venice.

Related Subjects

• Drama
• European and British Literature
• Judaism
• Literary Criticism and Theory

About the Author

James Shapiro is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.

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