What Can We Do about Fagin? The Jew-Villain in Western Tradition

Leslie A. Fiedler

1949

The real start of the myth of the Jew with the Knife in English literature goes back to the tale, already hundreds of years old, which Chaucer puts into the mouth of his Prioress, a character faintly ridiculous, but lovable and obviously intended to be esteemed. It is a charmingly told tale about a little boy who so irked the Jews by singing the…

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Creator Bio

Leslie A. Fiedler

1917–2003

Leslie A. Fiedler, a swashbuckling literary critic, was a loud, provocative voice in American letters. Born in Newark, New Jersey, he flirted with socialism and Trotskyism before serving in the navy as a cryptologist. As a literary man, he straddled the worlds of academe and small magazines; an anti-highbrow, he championed passionate, transgressive writing, explaining, “I long for the raised voice, the howl of rage or love.” His own hot-blooded writing included poetry as well as memoir and fiction.

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