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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Melodrama and the ‘art of government’:
T2 - Jewish emancipation and Elizabeth Polack’s Esther, the Royal Jewess; or The Death of Haman!
AU - Carruthers, Joanne Amy
PY - 2020/11/1
Y1 - 2020/11/1
N2 - This article challenges historians’ representations of working-class Jewish attitudes to emancipation in the early nineteenth century through a reading of Elizabeth Polack’s 1835 melodrama, Esther, the Royal Jewess, or the Death of Haman! Low expectations of working-class political engagement and the working-class genre of the melodrama are both challenged by the astute political content of Polack’s play. Its historical and political value is revealed by placing the play within the tradition of the purimspiel, the Jewish genre that traditionally explores Jewish life under hostile government. Reading the play alongside Walter Benjamin’s writings on the disparaged German melodramatic genre of the trauerspiel enables a finely articulated reading of its complex exploration of issues of sovereignty, law, and religious and political freedom.
AB - This article challenges historians’ representations of working-class Jewish attitudes to emancipation in the early nineteenth century through a reading of Elizabeth Polack’s 1835 melodrama, Esther, the Royal Jewess, or the Death of Haman! Low expectations of working-class political engagement and the working-class genre of the melodrama are both challenged by the astute political content of Polack’s play. Its historical and political value is revealed by placing the play within the tradition of the purimspiel, the Jewish genre that traditionally explores Jewish life under hostile government. Reading the play alongside Walter Benjamin’s writings on the disparaged German melodramatic genre of the trauerspiel enables a finely articulated reading of its complex exploration of issues of sovereignty, law, and religious and political freedom.
KW - Jewish emancipation
KW - melodrama
KW - Walter Benjamin
KW - Elizabeth Polack
KW - Esther (Bible)
KW - Purimspiel
U2 - 10.1177/0306197320945947
DO - 10.1177/0306197320945947
M3 - Journal article
VL - 29
SP - 144
EP - 163
JO - Literature and History
JF - Literature and History
SN - 0306-1973
IS - 2
ER -