British Romanticism and the Jews: History, Culture, Literature

by S. Spector (Editor)

Overview

British Romanticism and the Jews explores the mutual influences exerted by the British-Christian and British-Jewish communities on each other during the period between the Enlightenment and Victorianism. The essays in the volume demonstrate how the texts produced by the Jewish Enlightenment provided a significant resource for romantic intellectual revisionism, in much the same way that British romanticism provided the cultural basis through which the British-Jewish community was able to negotiate between the competing obligations to ethnicity and nationalism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230602519
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan US
Publication date:	08/21/2008
Edition description:	2002
Pages:	294
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

SHEILA A. SPECTOR has devoted her scholarly career to studying the intersection between British Literature and Judaica, since receiving the MA in Comparative Literature, and the PH.D. in British Literature, both from the University of Maryland. In addition to numerous articles, she has published Jewish Mysticism: An Annotated Bibliography of the Kabbalah in English (Garland, 1984), the only comprehensive, book-length bibliography of English-language materials dealing with Kabbalism. She served as consultant for the film William Blake, part of the film series, Pioneers of the Spirit, produced by Trinity Television in 1998, and she published a two- volume study of Blake as a Kabbalist: Glorious incomprehensible: The Development of Blake's Kabbalistic Language, and Wonders Divine: The Development of Blake's Kabbalistic Myth, both published by Bucknell University Press (2001).

Table of Contents

Introduction; S.A.Spector Cultural Contexts Great Britain or Judea Nova? National Identity, Property, and the Jewish Naturalization Controversy of 1753; A.H.Singer Abraham Goldsmid: Money Magician in the Popular Press; M.L.Schoenfield Halakhic Romanticism: Wordsworth, the Rabbis, & T.L.Davies What Are Those Golden Builders Doing?: Mendelssohn, Blake and the (Un)Building of Jerusalem; L.Tannenbaum British Romantics and the Haskalah For Luz is a Good Joke": Thomas Lovell Beddoes and Jewish Eschatology; C.Moylan Scott's Hebraic Historicism; E.Schor Maria Edgeworth's Harrington: The Price of Sympathetic Representation; N.Hoad Imagining 'the jew': Dickens' Romantic Heritage; E.Sicher Jewish Writers and British Romanticism British-Jewish Writing of the Romantic Era and the Problem of Modernity: The Example of David Levi; M.Scrivener Not for 'Antiquaries', but for "Philosophers: Isaac D'Israeli's Talmudic Critique and His Talmudical Way with Literature; S.Peterfreund Hyman Hurwitz's Hebrew Tales (1826): Redeeming the Talmudic Garden - J.W.Page Grace Aguilar: Rewriting Scott Rewriting History - E.Fay Alroy as Disraeli's "Ideal Ambition; S.A.Spector Harold's Complaint, or Assimilation in Full Bloom; D.Kaufmann

Editorial Reviews

"Without exception, the contributors negotiate almost seamlessly between the fields of literature, history, cultural, and Jewish studies." - Frank Felsenstein, Ball State University, USA

"The complex relationship between British romanticism and Anglo-Jewry has never before been discussed so exhaustively and with such sophistication." - Bryan Cheyette, University of Southampton, UK

From the Publisher