The Jew in early American literature
Institution: | Boston University |
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Department: | |
Year: | 1950 |
Record ID: | 1514577 |
Full text PDF: | http://hdl.handle.net/2144/5399 |
In the essay interest in the Jew had been scholarly rather than humanitarian. In fiction and on the stage the Jew was a blackguard as often as not. But it was in the field of poetry that the Jew received his most sympathetic treatment at the hands of early American writers. The Jew of the poem was thoroughly heroic. If there were a touch of Shylock in his make-up, the poets, at least, did not see it.