The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 18.0611 Friday, 14 September 2007
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[1] From: Bob Lapides <
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Date: Wednesday, 12 Sep 2007 12:14:58 EDT
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0600 Redheads
[2] From: Donald Bloom <
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Date: Wednesday, 12 Sep 2007 14:12:49 -0500
Subj: RE: SHK 18.0600 Redheads
[3] From: David Basch <
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Date: Wednesday, 12 Sep 2007 15:23:36 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0600 Redheads
[4] From: Joseph Egert <
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Date: Thursday, 13 Sep 2007 09:39:39 -0700 (PDT)
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0570 Redheads
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Bob Lapides <
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Date: Wednesday, 12 Sep 2007 12:14:58 EDT
Subject: 18.0600 Redheads
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0600 Redheads
Is Peter Bridgman serious when he says Judas was given a hooked nose not
because it's a Jewish trait but to indicate villainy? There's no
question that Jews and Arabs have hooked noses, though of course not all
of them, least of all those who have intermarried. When George
Cruikshank, Dickens's illustrator, drew the characters in Oliver Twist,
he gave a hooked nose to Fagin but not to the murderer Bill Sikes.
Peter points out that we've agreed red hair is not a particularly Jewish
trait, but we've also noted it was thought to be -- which was why
Shylock had a red wig or a red hat, as well as a big nose.
It's true Palestine was a geographical designation in the ancient world,
but Judaea was the name of the Jewish state the Jews lived in -- until
the Romans renamed it Palestine in the 2nd century CE. Peter writes, "I
think we are therefore justified in describing the Holy Family as
'Palestinian.' "I have to wonder why he can't describe them as simply
Jewish -- or, if need be, as Judaean Jews.
Peter has brought up some points I was ignorant of, which has gotten me
to fill in other gaps in my knowledge -- about the New Testament in
Greek and Aramaic, and about ancient Palestine. I'm grateful to him for
this and impressed by his wide knowledge. And I apologize to Hardy and
the list for pursuing this topic at length.
BTW, in its entry for "Shylock," Wikipedia has a rather sympathetic
painting of Shylock and Jessica done by Maurycy Gottlieb, a 19C Jewish
artist.
Bob Lapides
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Donald Bloom <
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Date: Wednesday, 12 Sep 2007 14:12:49 -0500
Subject: 18.0600 Redheads
Comment: RE: SHK 18.0600 Redheads
I have found out a great deal about the meaning of red hair in European
(and closely related) culture. But I still find myself craving more
fact, and if possible, expert interpretation. To wit:
1 -- Is there anywhere any compilation of information about the
representation of red hair in European art, literature, and folklore?
2 -- Is there any biological study of red hair as a genetic trait?
3 -- Does anybody have the foggiest notion how a trait, apparently
characteristic of the most northern of European peoples, came to be
associated with (a) a people of Middle Eastern origin, (b) evil, and (c)
some overlap of (a) and (b)
Anyone with scholarly friends in areas outside Shakespeare and
literature that would be relevant could ask them if they know of any
such studies. I'd appreciate it. Such information could be useful to
understanding MOV better, and certainly to understanding the cultural
prejudices of Shakespeare's time.
Thanks,
don
[3]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Basch <
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Date: Wednesday, 12 Sep 2007 15:23:36 -0400
Subject: 18.0600 Redheads
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0600 Redheads
If the discussion is about Jews living at the time of Jesus and the
Temple, the country in which the Jewish Temple was located was Judea,
not "Palestine," and the people were Jews, not "Palestinians."
The Romans renamed the area "Aeola Palestina" after the Jewish revolt
failed, much later in the first century. It was after that time that
this designation of the area was widely used. Hence Peter Bridgeman's
reference to Jews at the time of Jesus as "Palestinian" is misapplied.
Jesus would not even know what he meant.
[4]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Joseph Egert <
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Date: Thursday, 13 Sep 2007 09:39:39 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: 18.0570 Redheads
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0570 Redheads
Some final thoughts on "Redheads"....
Colin Cox (SHK 18.0532) reports Burbage played Shylock. Has that been
nailed down? Might it not have been Shakespeare himself or someone else?
David Basch (SHK 18.0542) quotes AYLI's "dissembling color" and "browner
chestnut". Isn't Shakespeare contrasting rather than likening the fiery
red and the browner chestnut hue? Basch is correct in translating the
Hebrew in SAMUEL 16:12 as "with beautiful eyes". The Greek Septuagint
(transliterated "kallous ophthalmon") is probably closest to the Hebrew
as "with beauty of eyes".
Larry Weiss (SHK 18.0548) offers us multiple options for staging lawyer
Portia's announced failure to distinguish merchant from Jew. Couldn't
Shakespeare have tinged the goodly apple Antonio's own fuzz red? Don
Bloom in the same post notes the prominence of red hair among the
Celtic/Germanic stocks. Wasn't Satan the Red in some way modelled after
the horned rufous Norse invaders? Did Inman's "Teutonic males" restrict
their prey to Jewish women alone?
Virginia Byrne (SHK 18.0557) limns passionate red as most powerful of
the visible wavelengths. Technically, isn't it rather violet?
Peter Bridgman (SHK 18.0554) duly notes the early notorious association
of red hair with the barbarous older brother Esau. But why Esau? Tony
Burton's paleopresentist author(s) of this GENESIS tale took pains to
link the duped and superseded older brother with Edom, and so justify
contemporary Hebrew occupation of Edomite land and hegemony over its
crude uncivilized hunter people. The Edomite region "Seir" is itself
linked to the Hebrew word for hair. It seems the Lord's mysterious ways
include force and (in Jacob's case) fraud. Not to be outdone, later
Christian supersessors deliberately named the turncoat apostle "Judas"
and painted him with Esau's red hair. After all, Christianity was the
new kid on the block, intent on displacing the older brother Judaism. To
these Christians the only good Jews were the dead Jews of the ancient
past, whose birthright they claimed as the New Israel, the true heirs of
the covenant. Does Peter Bridgman truly believe the name "Judas" and
his nefarious red hair were not designed ab initio to villify
"Judaism"? Even today in modern Israel, militant religious Zionists use
these Old Testament tales to "legitimate" their Greater Israel movement.
And so the Wheel turns.
The sibling rivalry between the Old and New Dispensations runs, of
course, throughout the MERCHANT OF VENICE. Whether freely or compelled,
the movement of each major character is invariably from Old to New. The
characters often post figure multiple Biblical heroes. Shylock is cast
as Abraham, Laban, and Jacob, with Antonio cast as both Jesus and Isaac
(like old Iobbe). Portia, in fulfilling her father's Old Testament,
breaks free of it at the same time. The trial may be seen as an updated
wrestling match of the angel/Portia with Jacob/Shylock, who emerges
chastened as part of the New Israel. Lancelet begins as both hairy Esau
and Ishmael ("Hagar's child") while serving the House of Shylock, but
morphs into the younger heir as he deserts Shylock for the House of
Bassanio and Portia, the new Christian Church. By impregnating his Dark
Lady, he brings all future Othellos into the Christian fold.
Interestingly I see the sibling rivalry extending to the distaff side as
well. Christian propagandists often typed Leah, to whom Shylock is so
attached, as the unattractive elder sibling Judaism to be superseded by
the younger beautiful Rachel, or Christianity. Yet Leah mothered Judah,
and through her line David and ultimately Jesus (?Jessica). Indeed,
Jessica, like the Bible's Ruth, is abandoning her Jewish Moab for
Lorenzo, the Christian Boas, sire of the David/Jesus line. But where is
Rachel in the MERCHANT? Doesn't Jessica, like Rachel, steal her father's
jewels/idols? Remember those Jasons of Venice in quest of the Golden
Fleece? Aren't Portia and Jessica the gilded ewes in this play? And
doesn't "Rachel" mean "ewe" in Hebrew?
One more troubling feature of these posts is the automatic presumption
that all conversos were faking loyalty to their shiny irresistible new
faith. Conversos are nearly always conflated with Jews, be they the
Bassanos, the "Jews" of Shakespeare's London, or Rodrigo Lopez. Before
Lopez was hanged, drawn, and quartered, the last sound he heard was the
mocking laughter of his fellow Christians in response to his dying
affirmation that he "loved the Queen as he loved Jesus Christ". After
all, Camden adds, this came "from a man of the Jewish profession".
Wasn't this relentless distrust and suspicion from Brother Big in cowl
and hood to be Shylock's fate to the end of his days?
Wondering,
Joe Egert
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