Using popular literature as a window on Italian society and its values, Lynn Gunzberg explores the representation of Jews in novels and poetry written by non-Jews from the beginning of the Risorgimento in the early 1800s to the enactment of the Fascist racial laws in 1938. She shows how the literature of that period contradicts the popular belief that anti-Semitism simply did not exist in Italy until late in the Fascist period.
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Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
How Jews are depicted in popular Italian literature is the topic of this well-researched and scholarly volume. Gunzberg (associate dean, Brown Univ.) explores the representation of Jews in novels and poetry written by non-Jews from the beginning of the Risorgimento in the early 1800s to the enactment of the Fascist racial laws in 1938. She begins her literary analysis with the movement for emancipation from the actual ghetto and ends with the "reghettoization" of the Jews. She analyzes Father Bressciani's The Jew of Verona , the popular satirical poetry of G.G. Belli, and 19th- and 20th-century Italian authors who use Jewish imagery. One of her conclusions is that stereotypes of Jews as usurers, money lenders, and traitors with shifty eyes, especially in popular literature, took the place of actual inquiry into Jewish reality for the mass of undereducated gentiles. She shows how the literature of the period contradicts the popular belief that anti-Semitism simply did not exist in Italy until late in the Fascist period. A highly recommended work of historic importance.
- Molly Abramowitz, Silver Spring, Md.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Molly Abramowitz, Silver Spring, Md.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
This book explain Jewish characters in italian literature,
By A Customer
This review is from: Strangers at Home: Jews in the Italian Literary Imagination (Hardcover)
This book try to explain the different representations of Jewish characters in Italian literature between 1840 and 1938. There are a lot of interesting data, but some of these are taken from the article Italy, s.v. literature, of the Jewish Encyclopedia. This work wants also show how many anti-semitic stereotypes we can find in italian literary imagination before fascist racial persecutions (1938-1945, but the analysis concerns few authors.
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