From stereotype to metaphor : the Jew in contemporary drama
Ellen Schiff (Author)
Who is a Jew? What is a Jew? In this all-encompassing study, Dr. Schiff probes these questions to help explain the prominence of Jewish characters in drama since World War II. The Jew has evolved into one of the most popular personages on the contemporary stage. Dramatists, both Jew and Gentile, in the United States and Europe, have been mining recently introduced concepts of the Jew to create a highly diversified and unfamiliar breed of dramatis personae. From Stereotype to Metaphor tracks the evolution of the Jewish persona on the stage. From the debut of the Jew on the Western stage in the Middle Ages to the present century, Dr. Schiff investigates how the Jew has evolved from the stereotypical figures of biblical patriarchs, moneymen and villains into latter-day everyman. This book traces the line of descent of the stage Jew from church drama, Shakespeare, Milton, and Racine to modern playwrights, including Miller, Gibson, Pinter, Wesker, Anouilh, Grumberg, and Woody Allen, concentrating on the development of the stage Jew since 1945
Print Book, English, 1982
State University of New York Press, Albany, New York, 1982
Criticism, interpretation, etc
xiii, 276 pages ; 24 cm
9780873956215, 9780873956222, 0873956214, 0873956222
8195190
Introduction: the tradition of the stage Jew
Modern heroes of Biblical drama
Myths and stock types
The Jew as other
The Jew in a Jewish world
The Jew and other outsiders
Crises of conscience and of consciousness
The Jew as metaphor
Conclusion