Author: Marks, Elaine
Title: Marrano as Metaphor: The Jewish Presence in French Writing
Description: New York, Columbia University Press, (1996). orig.boards. 24x15cm, xx,187 pp. Minor rubbing. VG. dustwrapper. ¶ When Europeans in the Middle Ages spoke of "marranos," they were making a derogatory reference to "crypts-Jews" - those who publicly converted to and performed as Christians, but who remained secretly Jewish and faithful to Judaic Law. This text asserts that the term can be used to describe all Jews living in a dominant Christian or Muslim culture. A sweeping examination of the Jewish presence in French literature, this work explores the many shapes and forms in which Jews are perceived, spoken and written about. Employing a wide spectrum of analytical methods from history, literary theory, and psychoanalysis, the author opens doors in the study of literature. She goes on to investigate questions of difference and assimilation, of respect and derogation, in a wide range of French literature - from Alain Robbe-Grillet's discussion in his memoirs of his parents' anti-Semitism to the story of Esther through Jean Racine and Marcel Proust; from efforts to address Jewish issues in the writings of Marguerite Duras and Jean-Paul Sartre to the secular, "assimilated" Jewish tradition of Jacques Derrida and Helene Cixous..." - Publisher's description.

Keywords: Literary Criticism, French Literature, Jews Jewry, Antisemitism, Anti-Semitism, France, History, ,