background of jew of Malta
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Answer:The Jew of Malta (full title: The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Jew of Malta) is a play by Christopher Marlowe, written in 1589 or 1590. The plot primarily revolves around a Maltese Jewish merchant named Barabas. The original story combines religious conflict, intrigue, and revenge, set against a backdrop of the struggle for supremacy between Spain and the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean that takes place on the island of Malta. There has been extensive debate about the play's portrayal of Jews and how Elizabethan audiences would have viewed it.
The Jew of Malta, given the time of its publication, its main character, and the significance of religion throughout the text, is often referenced in these discussions. Some of the conversation around antisemitism in The Jew of Malta focuses on authorial intent, the question of whether or not Marlowe intended to promote antisemitism in his work, while other critics focus on how the work is perceived, either by its audience at the time or by modern audiences.
A Marxist critique of The Jew of Malta suggests that Marlowe intended to utilize readily available antisemitic feelings in his audience in a way that made the Jews "incidental" to the social critique he offered. That is, he wished to use antisemitism as a rhetorical tool rather than advocating for it. In this, Marlowe failed, instead producing a work that is, because of its failure to "discredit" the sentiments it toys with, a propagator of antisemitism. Such rhetorical attempts "underestimated the irrationality... fixation...and persistence of anti-Semitism".[6]
Another viewpoint suggests that those who claim to see antisemitism in Marlowe's work often do so more because of what they think they know about the period in which they were written rather than what the texts themselves present. The author admits that certain of Barabas' features are troublesome vis-à-vis antisemitism, such as his large and often-referenced nose, but suggests that such surface details are not important. If one looks past the surface, it is argued, the play can be seen as uniting all three religions it represents—Judaism, Islam, and Christianity—by way of their mutual hypocrisy. These examples illustrate, though not fully, the breadth of opinions expressed on the subject.[1
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