The Portrayal of Jews in Nineteenth-Century English Literature | G. L. Hersey (essay date 1976)
G. L. Hersey (essay date 1976)
SOURCE: "Aryanism in Victorian England," in Yale Review, Vol. 66, Autumn, 1976, pp. 104-13.
[In the following essay, Hersey notes that the novel Lothair of Benjamin Disraeli (Prime Minister [1867; 1874-80] as well as novelist) "gently mocked" the views on Aryanism of Lord Leighton (painter), and that Leighton's positioning of Aryanism against Semitism resembled the construction of Matthew Arnold's arguments on Hellenism versus Hebraism.]
The cult, or philosophy, of Aryanism has flourished at various times and in various places during the past 150 years. In Britain from the late 1860's through at least the early 1890's it manifested itself both in art and politics; and the appearance last year of these two books [Lord Leighton, by Leonée and Richard Ormond; and Lothair, by Benjamin Disraeli, edited by Vernon Bogdanor] raises the question of Aryanism's effect on two key Victorians:...
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