William Shakespeare | Was Shakespeare anti-semitic?
Shakespeare (probably born a Catholic but converted to the Protestant Church of England during Elizabeth I's reign) was a Christian who presented a highly unattractive Jewish character in the infamous Shylock of The Merchant of Venice. The greedy Shylock embodies the negative traits associated by Elizabethan audiences with Jews. Since there were very few Jews living in England during Shakespeare's Age, the negative attitudes of his fellow Elizabethans came to them through the Church and the theater, the latter including Morality and Passion plays in which the Jews are epitomized in the...
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