Ludwig Robert is best known today as the brother of salonnière Rahel Levin Varnhagen. Through Bar... more Ludwig Robert is best known today as the brother of salonnière Rahel Levin Varnhagen. Through Baroness Sophie von Grotthuß he came to have his first play performed in Goethe's Weimar. The play was called Die Tochter Jephtbas [Jephthah's Daughter]. Set in biblical times, the play actually dramatises the transgressive nature of nineteenth-century Jewish women's mobility. In this essay I analyse the correspondence surrounding Robert's play and read the play in relation to Bible stories, Goethe's literary creations and German adaptations of Shakespeare. The circumstances surrounding the play's production, the flouting of some representational conventions, and the heritage of the playwright and his patroness combine to provide insight into the complexity of German—Jewish and gendered relations in the early 1800s.
Jewish Culture and History 8.1 (2006): 29-48. , 2006
In Scott's Ivanhoe, the character of Rebecca refuses to be circumscribed by the discourses of Ori... more In Scott's Ivanhoe, the character of Rebecca refuses to be circumscribed by the discourses of Orientialism, anti-semitism, and idealism. Rebecca's specifically Jewish female sexuality escapes the binary oppositions of East/West, past/present, Christian/alien, subject/object, and pure/tainted that would seek to contain her. Jewish female desire creates an instability in Scott's text that is only temporarily resolved through Rebecca's expulsion. This article argues that Scott uses cultural markers such as a yellow turban, a diamond earring, and a silver casket in order to render the Jewish woman reliably visible in an attempt to relieve the tension created by a character who defies categories and conventions. One way of defining the self is through negation, or, to paraphrase Hayden White, if we
Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues, 2005
Of Walter Scott's characters, one of the most enigmatic and the one that most threatens the ideol... more Of Walter Scott's characters, one of the most enigmatic and the one that most threatens the ideological edifi ce upon which historical fi ction is built is the fi gure of the Jewess, Rebecca of York, from the novel Ivanhoe. In the novel, Rebecca is a healer; she is also beautiful, and her beauty attracts more than one Christian lover. At the end of the novel, Rebecca and the hero, Ivanhoe, do not marry, to the chagrin of many a reader. Rebecca's choice to remain with her father, to go into exile, and never to marry has been one of the main focuses in the history of the tale's reception.
Ludwig Robert is best known today as the brother of salonnière Rahel Levin Varnhagen. Through Bar... more Ludwig Robert is best known today as the brother of salonnière Rahel Levin Varnhagen. Through Baroness Sophie von Grotthuß he came to have his first play performed in Goethe's Weimar. The play was called Die Tochter Jephtbas [Jephthah's Daughter]. Set in biblical times, the play actually dramatises the transgressive nature of nineteenth-century Jewish women's mobility. In this essay I analyse the correspondence surrounding Robert's play and read the play in relation to Bible stories, Goethe's literary creations and German adaptations of Shakespeare. The circumstances surrounding the play's production, the flouting of some representational conventions, and the heritage of the playwright and his patroness combine to provide insight into the complexity of German—Jewish and gendered relations in the early 1800s.
Jewish Culture and History 8.1 (2006): 29-48. , 2006
In Scott's Ivanhoe, the character of Rebecca refuses to be circumscribed by the discourses of Ori... more In Scott's Ivanhoe, the character of Rebecca refuses to be circumscribed by the discourses of Orientialism, anti-semitism, and idealism. Rebecca's specifically Jewish female sexuality escapes the binary oppositions of East/West, past/present, Christian/alien, subject/object, and pure/tainted that would seek to contain her. Jewish female desire creates an instability in Scott's text that is only temporarily resolved through Rebecca's expulsion. This article argues that Scott uses cultural markers such as a yellow turban, a diamond earring, and a silver casket in order to render the Jewish woman reliably visible in an attempt to relieve the tension created by a character who defies categories and conventions. One way of defining the self is through negation, or, to paraphrase Hayden White, if we
Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues, 2005
Of Walter Scott's characters, one of the most enigmatic and the one that most threatens the ideol... more Of Walter Scott's characters, one of the most enigmatic and the one that most threatens the ideological edifi ce upon which historical fi ction is built is the fi gure of the Jewess, Rebecca of York, from the novel Ivanhoe. In the novel, Rebecca is a healer; she is also beautiful, and her beauty attracts more than one Christian lover. At the end of the novel, Rebecca and the hero, Ivanhoe, do not marry, to the chagrin of many a reader. Rebecca's choice to remain with her father, to go into exile, and never to marry has been one of the main focuses in the history of the tale's reception.
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