‘And Which the Jew?’: Representations Of Shylock in Meiji Japan (1868–1912)

Summary

When The Merchant of Venice was first introduced to Japan in the early years of the Meiji period, an overwhelming majority of the readers and members of the audience had not even heard the word ‘Jew’, let alone met one in the flesh. Japan had only recently (1854) abandoned its isolationist foreign policy that had severely limited relations with other countries and banned nearly all foreign nationals from entering the country for 265 years. James Shapiro has shown convincingly that, in England, Jews kept invoking cultural insecurities even after the Expulsion in 1290, and that the anxiety they generated directly influenced Shakespeare’s Jewish characters.² Even the brilliant Columbia professor, however, would have difficulty locating a ‘Jewish question’ in Japan at the time of the Meiji Restoration. In fact, it was Shakespeare’s Venetian comedy that would help frame that ‘question’ in Japanese minds.