47 research outputs found
Reverse Anti-Semitism in the Fiction of Bellow and Roth
No full textIn his article Reverse Anti-Semitism in the Fiction of Bellow and Roth Jay L. Halio discusses anti-Semitism in Philip Roth\u27s fiction that what might be called reverse anti-Semitism: the active reaction by Jews who are subjected to anti-Semitism. This aspect of Roth\u27s work is not often discussed: it is not the same as philo-Semitism, which takes a different form entirely. Since Roth was an admirer of Saul Bellow, Halio begins by considering reverse anti-Semitism in Bellow\u27s early novel The Victim. In the novel the protagonist, Asa Leventhal, is accused by a character named Allbee of costing him his job and his subsequent downfall because of some anti-Semitic remarks he once made involving a friend of Leventhal\u27s. According to Allbee, Leventhal provoked Allbee\u27s boss in such a way that he blamed Allbee for the altercation, which led to his being fired. To clarify more fully the nature of reverse anti-Semitism, Shakespeare\u27s The Merchant of Venice is invoked to show how the Jewish moneylender Shylock takes revenge against his Christian antagonist, the Venetian merchant Antonio, who has scorned him repeatedly and in many ways. Finally, Halio focuses on Roth\u27s treatment of reverse anti-Semitism in Portnoy\u27s Complaint, where Alexander\u27s actions with gentile women he seduces is prompted at least in part by feelings of revenge for the anti-Semitism his father has experienced over many years. Halio also discusses reverse anti-Semitism in Roth\u27s novel Operation Shylock
Philip Roth revisited
No full textPhilip Roth is unquestionably one of the major literary voices of our time, one who has combined critical acclaim with a wide readership. Since the publication of Bernard F. Rodgers's Twayne study of Roth (1978), Roth's oeuvre has expanded considerably both in bulk and in range, with the publication of such major works as The Ghost Writer, The Counterlife, and Patrimony. Philip Roth Revisited is an entirely new look at this important writer's life and work. In this sensitive study Jay L. Halio interprets Roth as fundamentally a comic writer in the tradition of that great "sit-down comedian," Franz Kafka. Humor, Halio argues, is for Roth the vehicle of truth. The present volume is more than a study of a single theme in Roth's work, however for Halio gives full consideration to the many complexities of Roth's writings. Roth has always, for instance, been a writer deeply concerned with characteristically Jewish themes, often controversially so, as in his outrageously comic Portnoy's Complaint. Halio places Roth in his Jewish-American milieu, explaining both the similarities and the differences between Roth and other Jewish-American writers, and discussing the reception of Roth's work by the Jewish community. In the latter part of his career, perhaps influenced by the insistence of readers and critics on seeing the author himself in his protagonists, Roth has turned to the complex theme of the interweaving of art and autobiography a concern that has both intrigued and irritated some critics. Halio's analysis of this important element in Roth's work is perhaps the clearest available reading of a notoriously complex subject. Comic, subtle, intelligent, Philip Roth's literary art reps careful and sensitive reading. Halio's study will be valuable to students and scholars of American literature, and to general readers interested in learning about one of America's leading men of letters
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Masturbation and its discontents; or, serious relief: Freudian comedy in 'Portnoy's Complaint'
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Manifestations of otherness in performance: a brazilian Othello
No full textDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras/Inglês e Literatura Correspondente.Uma produção brasileira de Otelo, de William Shakespeare, dirigida por Janssen Hugo Lage, foi analisada. Dados incluindo vídeo, fotografias, texto de origem, manual de palco, críticas e entrevistas com membros da compania e da platéia, foram investigados conforme a metodologia proposta por Jay Halio e sustentada por Maria Helena Serôdio e Susan Bennett. Dada a relevância do discurso racial de Otelo para o contexto brasileiro, a análise procurou investigar como o texto Shakespeareano foi realizado na produção de Lage em relação à caracterização da personagem principal como o Outro, motivo pelo qual os conceitos de Alteridade e Raça, conforme discutidos por Edward Said e Robert Miles, foram considerados. A análise mostrou que, apesar das preocupações da compania quanto à atualização dramática e o tema do racismo, a produção continuou concordando com os estereótipos racistas há muito atrelados à peça
