Constructions of the Jew in English Literature and Society

Racial Representations, 1875-1945

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by Bryan Cheyette

Cambridge University Press

Due/Published November 1996, 317 pages, paper

ISBN 0521558778

Cheyette combines cultural theory, discourse analysis, and new historicism with close readings of works by Arnold, Trollope and George Eliot, Buchan, and Kipling, Shaw and Wells, Belloc and Chesterton, T. S. Eliot and Joyce to argue that the Jew lies at the heart of modern English literature and society: not as a stereotype, but as the embodiment of confusion and indeterminacy.

Contents:1. Introduction: Semitism and the cultural realm; 2. The promised land of liberalism: Matthew Arnold, Anthony Trollope and George Eliot; 3. Empire and anarchy: John Buchan and Rudyard Kipling; 4. The socialism of fools: George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells; 5. The limits of liberalism: Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton; 6. Modernism and ambivalence: T. S. Eliot and James Joyce; 7. Conclusion: Semitism and the crisis of representation.