Masculinity, Anti-Semitism and Early Modern English Literature

This study argues that modern antisemitism is a by-product of tensions between received Classical conceptions of masculinity and Christianity's strident critique of that ideal. Utilizing works by Shakespeare, Milton, Marlowe and others, Biberman illustrates how antisemitism develops as a way to stigmatize hypermasculine behavior, thus facilitating the transformation of the culture's gender ideal from knight to businessman. Subsequently, the function of antisemitism changes, becoming instead the mark of effeminate behavior. Consequently, the central antisemitic image changes from Jew-Devil to Jew-Sissy. Biberman traces this shift's repercussions, both in Renaissance culture and what follows it. He also contends that as a result of this linkage between Jewishness and the limits of masculine behavior, the image of the Jewish woman remains especially unstable. In concluding, Biberman argues that the Gothic resurrects the Jew-Devil (bequeathing it to the Nazis), and that the horror genre is often a rewriting of Renaissance discourse about Jews.