Imperfect Sympathies: Jews and Judaism in British Romantic Literature and Culture

Judith W. Page argues that the 'cultural revolution' of sympathy and sentiment in British literature from 1770-1830 influenced the representations of Jews and Judaism. Page draws on historical materials and primary documents by and about Jews of the period, as well as a variety of authors and literary genres. She argues that there is a tension between the Romantic impulse to admire and sympathize with Jews and Judaism on the one hand, and the traditions of anti-semitism and conversionist philo-Semitism on the other. This often unresolved tension in the literature reflects the political and cultural struggles of the time, as well as the dilemma of Romanticism, which advocates sympathy but doesn't always accommodate difference.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Jews and the Romantic Culture of Sympathy Blessing and Curse: Imaginary Jews and Romantic Texts Reinventing Shylock: Romanticism and the Representation of Shakespeare's Jew Hyman Hurwitz's Hebrew Tales (1826): Redeeming the Talmudic Garden Judith Montefiore's Private Journal (1827): Jerusalem and Jewish Memory Maria Edgeworth's Harrington (1817): Jews, Storytelling, and the Challenge of Moral Education 'Nor Yet Redeemed From Scorn': Wordsworth and the Jews 'The Historical Moment': Jewish Scholars and Romanticism

About the Author :
JUDITH W. PAGE is Professor of English at the University of Florida, USA.

Review :
"What were the limits of Romantic sympathy? Judith W. Page incisively demonstrates that, where Jews and Judaism were concerned, artists like Edgeworth and Wordsworth, Lamb and Coleridge, Cumberland and Kean mostly expressed ambivalence. Contrasting such texts with the autoethnographic writings of Romantic Jews themselves, Page gives new life to neglected Anglo-Jewish texts like Hyman Hurwitz's "Hebrew Tales," Judith Montefiore's "Jerusalem" journals, and Emma Lyons' "Miscellaneous Poems. "In a fascinating meditation on recent Jewish critics' sympathy for Romantic poetry, Page rejects a simplistic correspondence between Romanticism and Judaism while discovering a range of elective affinities. I have been waiting for this book for a long time."--Michael Galchinsky, Associate Professor of English and Director of the Program in Jewish Studies, Georgia State University "Judith Page's "Imperfect Sympathies" is an original, thorough, and exceptionally perceptive account of the ways in whi