Wandering Jew

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

(Difference between revisions)

Current revision

"Of the romances of Eugène Sue and Dr. Croly, founded upon the legend [of the Wandering Jew], the less said the better. The original legend is so noble in its severe simplicity, that none but a master mind could develop it with any chance of success. Nor have the poetical attempts upon the story fared better. It was reserved for the pencil of Gustave Doré to treat it with the originality it merited, and in a series of woodcuts to produce at once a poem, a romance, and a chef-d'œuvre of art."--Curious Myths of the Middle Ages (1866) Sabine Baring-Gould

Related e

Wikipedia
Wiktionary
Shop

Featured:

Rhombicuboctahedron by Leonardo da Vinci

The Wandering Jew is a mythical immortal man whose legend began to spread in Europe in the 13th century.

As described in the first chapter of Curious Myths of the Middle Ages where Sabine Baring-Gould attributed the earliest extant mention of the myth of the Wandering Jew to Matthew Paris. The chapter began with a reference to Gustave Doré's series of twelve illustrations to the legend, and ended with a sentence remarking that, while the original legend was so "noble in its severe simplicity" that few could develop it with success in poetry or otherwise, Doré had produced in this series "at once a poem, a romance, and a chef-d'œuvre of art".

In the original legend, a Jew who taunted Jesus on the way to the Crucifixion was then cursed to walk the Earth until the Second Coming. The exact nature of the wanderer's indiscretion varies in different versions of the tale, as do aspects of his character; sometimes he is said to be a shoemaker or other tradesman, while sometimes he is the doorman at the estate of Pontius Pilate.

[edit]

+{| class="toccolours" style="float: left; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 2em; font-size: 85%; background:#c6dbf7; color:black; width:30em; max-width: 40%;" cellspacing="5"
+| style="text-align: left;" |
+"Of the romances of [[Eugène Sue]] and Dr. [[George Croly|Croly]], founded upon the legend [of the ''[[Wandering Jew]]''], the less said the better. The original legend is so noble in its severe simplicity, that none but a master mind could develop it with any chance of success. Nor have the poetical attempts upon the story fared better. It was reserved for the pencil of [[Gustave Doré]] to treat it with the originality it merited, and in a series of woodcuts to produce at once a poem, a romance, and a chef-d'œuvre of art."--''[[Curious Myths of the Middle Ages]]'' (1866) Sabine Baring-Gould
+|}
 {{Template}}
-A [[Jewish]] [[shoemaker]] who, in [[Christian]] tradition, taunted [[Jesus Christ]] on the way to his (Jesus') [[crucifixion]] and for that was [[condemn]]ed to [[wander]] the [[Earth]] until Jesus' return (ie. the [[second coming]]).
+The '''Wandering Jew''' is a mythical [[Immortality|immortal]] man whose [[legend]] began to spread in [[Europe]] in the [[13th century]].
-The '''Wandering Jew''' is a [[fictional character]] from medieval [[Christian mythology|Christian folklore]] that began to spread in Europe in the thirteenth century. It concerns a [[Jew]] who, according to legend, taunted [[Jesus]] on the way to the [[Crucifixion]] and was then cursed to walk the earth until the [[Second Coming]].
+As described in the first chapter of ''[[Curious Myths of the Middle Ages]]'' where [[Sabine Baring-Gould]] attributed the earliest extant mention of the myth of the Wandering Jew to [[Matthew Paris]]. The chapter began with a reference to [[Wandering Jew (Gustave Doré)|Gustave Doré's series of twelve illustrations to the legend]], and ended with a sentence remarking that, while the original legend was so "noble in its severe simplicity" that few could develop it with success in poetry or otherwise, Doré had produced in this series "at once a poem, a romance, and a chef-d'œuvre of art".
-==In literature==
-The legend became more popular after it appeared in a pamphlet of four leaves, ''Kurtze Beschreibung und Erzählung von einem Juden mit Namen Ahasverus'' (''short description and tale of a Jew with the name Ahasuerus''). "Here we are told that some fifty years before, a bishop met him in a church at Hamburg, repentant, ill-clothed and distracted at the thought of having to move on in a few weeks"  As with [[urban legend]]s, particularities lend verisimilitude: the bishop is specifically the Bishop of Schleswig, Paulus von Eizen. The legend spread quickly throughout [[Germany]], no less than eight different editions appearing in 1602; altogether forty appeared in Germany before the end of the eighteenth century. Eight editions in Dutch and Flemish are known; and the story soon passed to [[France]], the first French edition appearing in [[Bordeaux]], 1609, and to England, where it appeared in the form of a parody in 1625.  The pamphlet was translated also into [[Danish language|Danish]] and [[Swedish language|Swedish]]; and the expression "eternal Jew" is current in [[Czech language|Czech]] and German, ''der Ewige Jude''.
-The Wandering Jew makes an appearance in one of the secondary plots in Matthew Lewis's Gothic novel ''[[The Monk]]'', first published in 1796.  The wandering Jew is also mentioned, and then mirrored in "[[Melmoth the Wanderer]]" by Charles Maturin c. 1820.  The legend also has been the subject of [[poem]]s by [[Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart|Schubart]], [[Aloys Schreiber]], [[Wilhelm Müller]], [[Nikolaus Lenau|Lenau]], [[Adelbert von Chamisso|Chamisso]], [[August Wilhelm von Schlegel|Schlegel]], [[Julius Mosen]] (an epic, 1838), and [[Ludwig Köhler|Köhler]]; of [[novel]]s by [[Franz Horn]] (1818), [[Oeklers]], and [[Levin Schücking|Schücking]]; and of [[tragedy|tragedies]] by [[Ernst August Friedrich Klingemann|Klingemann]] ("Ahasuerus", 1827) and [[Joseph Christian Freiherr von Zedlitz|Zedlitz]] (1844). It is almost certainly the Ahasuerus of Klingemann to whom [[Richard Wagner]] refers in the final passage of his notorious [[Das Judentum in der Musik]]. There are clear echoes of the Wandering Jew in Wagner's [[The Flying Dutchman]], and his final opera [[Parsifal]] features a woman called Kundry who is a female version of the Wandering Jew.
+In the original legend, a [[Jew]] who [[taunt]]ed [[Jesus]] on the way to the [[Crucifixion of Jesus|Crucifixion]] was then [[cursed]] to [[walk]] the Earth until the [[Second Coming]]. The exact nature of the wanderer's indiscretion varies in different versions of the tale, as do aspects of his character; sometimes he is said to be a [[Shoemaking|shoemaker]] or other [[tradesman]], while sometimes he is the doorman at the estate of [[Pontius Pilate]].
+==See also==
-[[Hans Christian Andersen]] made his "Ahasuerus" the Angel of Doubt, and was imitated by [[Seligmann Heller|Heller]] in a poem on "The Wandering of Ahasuerus", which he afterward developed into three cantos. [[Robert Hamerling]], in his "Ahasver in Rom" (Vienna, 1866), identifies [[Nero]] with the Wandering Jew. [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]] had designed a poem on the subject, the plot of which he sketched in his "Dichtung und Wahrheit".
+* [[Hob Gadling]]
+* [[Prester John]]
-In [[France]], the Wandering Jew appeared in [[Simon Tyssot de Patot]]'s ''La Vie, les Aventures et le Voyage de Groenland du Révérend Père Cordelier Pierre de Mésange'' (1720). [[Edgar Quinet]] published his prose epic on the legend in 1833, making the subject the judgment of the world; and [[Eugene Sue]] wrote his ''[[Le Juif Errant|Juif Errant]]'' in 1844. From the latter work, in which the author connects the story of Ahasuerus with that of [[Herodias]], most people derive their knowledge of the legend. Grenier's poem on the subject (1857) may have been inspired by [[Gustave Doré]]'s designs published in the preceding year, perhaps the most striking of Doré's imaginative works. One should also note [[Paul Féval, père]]'s ''La Fille du Juif Errant'' (1864), which combines several fictional Wandering Jews, both heroic and evil, and [[Alexandre Dumas, père|Alexandre Dumas]]' incomplete ''Isaac Laquedem'' (1853), a sprawling historical saga.
+* [[Spiderwort#Etymology|Spiderwort]]
+* [[Ashwatthama]]
-In England &mdash; besides the ballad given in [[Thomas Percy]]'s ''[[Reliques of Ancient English Poetry|Reliques]]'' and reprinted in [[Francis James Child]]'s ''[[Child Ballads|English and Scotch Ballads]]'' (1st ed., viii. 77) &mdash; there is a drama entitled ''The Wandering Jew, or Love's Masquerade'', written by [[Andrew Franklin]] (1797). [[William Godwin]]'s novel ''St. Leon'' (1799) has the motive of the immortal man, and [[Percy Bysshe Shelley|Shelley]] introduced Ahasuerus into his "Queen Mab". [[George Croly]]'s "Salathiel", which appeared anonymously in 1828, treated the subject in an imaginative form; it was reprinted under the title "Tarry Thou Till I Come" (New York, 1901). In "Helena", a novel by [[Evelyn Waugh]], the Wandering Jew appears in a dream to the protagonist and shows her where to look for the Cross, the goal of her quest. In [[James Joyce|Joyce]]'s master piece [[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]], Bloom's nemesis, the citizen, says of Bloom in his absence: "A wolf in sheep's clothing, says the citizen.  That's what he is. Virag from Hungary! Ahasuerus I call him.  Cursed by God." (Bodley Head Ed., page 439)
+* [[Melmoth the Wanderer]]
-[[The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale|'The Pardoner's Tale']], a piece of literature from [[The Canterbury Tales]] by [[Geoffery Chaucer]] may also contain a reference to the Wandering Jew. Many have attributed the Wandering Jew to the enigmatic character of the old man. An ancient man who is unable to die and wishes to trade his age for someone else's youth. He also disciplines the 3 rioters when they are rude to him and insult his circumstances, perhaps indicating he has learnt his lesson from tormenting Jesus.
-In Russia, the legend of the Wandering Jew appears in an incomplete epic poem by [[Vasily Zhukovsky]] (Василий Андреевич Жуковский), "Ahasuerus" (Агасфер, 1857) and in another epic poem by Wilhelm Küchelbecker (Вильгельм Карлович Кюхельбекер), "Ahasuerus, a Poem in Fragments" (Агасвер, поэма в отрывках), written from 1832-1846 but not published until 1878, long after the poet's death. [[Aleksandr Pushkin]] (Александр Сергеевич Пушкин) also began a long poem on Ahasuerus (Агафер, 1826) but abandoned the project quickly, completing under thirty lines. The name itself, with a clever plot that does not, however, focus on Ahasuerus ''per se'', appears in the novel "[[Overburdened with Evil]]" (Отягощенные злом, 1988) by [[Arkady and Boris Strugatsky]].
-The Wandering Jew makes a notable appearance in the [[gothic novel|gothic]] masterpiece of the [[Polish language|Polish]] writer [[Jan Potocki]], '[[The Manuscript Found in Saragossa]]', written about 1797.
-In Argentina, the topic of the Wandering Jew has appeared several times in the work of writer and professor [[Enrique Anderson Imbert]], particularly in his short-story ''El Grimorio'' (The Grimoire), included in the eponymous book. Anderson Imbert refers to the Wandering Jew as ''El Judío Errante'' or ''Ahasvero'' (Ahasuerus) indistinctly.  Chapter XXXVII, ''El Vagamundo'', in the collection of short stories, ''[[Misteriosa Buenos Aires]]'', by the Argentine writer [[Manuel Mujica Lainez]] also centres round the wandering of the Jew. The great Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges named the main character and narrator of his short story "The Immortal" Joseph Cartaphilus (in the story he was a Roman military tribune who gained immortality after drinking from a magical river and dies in the 1920s).
-[[Brazil]]ian writer and poet [[Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis|Machado de Assis]] often used Jewish themes in his writings.  One of his poems, ''Viver!'' ("To Live!") is a dialog between the Wandering Jew (named as Ahasuerus) and [[Prometheus]] at the end of time.  It was published in 1896 as part of the book ''Várias histórias'' ("Several stories").
-By the dawn of the 20th century Jewish writers and artists had appropriated the powerful symbol to express the suffering of exile and hope of the rebirth of the Jewish state. The great Soviet satyrists [[Ilya Ilf]] and [[Evgeny Petrov]] had their hero [[Ostap Bender]] tell the story of the Wandering Jew's death at the hands of Ukrainian nationalists in ''[[The Little Golden Calf]]''.
-In the [[post-apocalyptic]] [[science fiction]] book ''[[A Canticle For Leibowitz]]'', written by [[Walter M. Miller, Jr.]] and published in 1959, a character that can be interpreted as being the Wandering Jew is the only to appear in all three novellas. He observes the progress of the world and the abbey of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz in the two thousand years or so after a [[nuclear warfare|nuclear holocaust.]] He is connected to Lazarus, who was raised from the dead by Jesus. In 1967, he appears as an unexplained magical realist townfolk legend in Gabriel García Márquez's ''[[100 Years of Solitude]]''.
-Staff Sgt. [[Barry Sadler]], famous for writing and recording the [[Ballad of the Green Berets]] wrote a series of books featuring a character called [[Casca Rufio Longinius]] who is combination of two characters from Christian folklore, [[Longinus]] and the Wandering Jew.
-In [[Lew Wallace]]'s 19th century novel ''[[The Prince of India]]'', the Wandering Jew is the protagonist.  The book follows his adventures through the ages, as he takes part in the shaping of history.
-== See also ==
-*[[Melmoth the Wanderer]]
 {{GFDL}}

Wandering Jew

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Current revision

See also

Views

Personal tools

Search

Metas

Navigation