Wilhelm S and Shylock

Summary

Who is the mysterious dramatist who has shot to world-wide fame in our century because of his political relevance? His plays were performed before the incipiently fascist public in France and the actually fascist public in Germany during the 1930s, and he was acclaimed for his vigorous portrayal of the dangers of mob rule and the need for strong leadership, as well as for his awareness of the ineradicable enmity between Christian generosity and the Jewish fixation on money. At some point during the war he appears to have moved to England, since he wrote a film script for Laurence Olivier depicting the courage and resourcefulness of the English when fighting on the continent, and was much praised for his patriotism. After the war, his series of plays on English history showed the desirability of hereditary monarchy and the dangers of civil war; but after the student uprisings of 1968 he appears to have treated revolution much more sympathetically. His taste for a deliberately antiquated style and archaic diction lends (paradoxically) a sharpness to his critique of contemporary politics; his passion for anonymity and seclusion has kept biographers guessing, and has fascinated the public; and his obvious wanderlust has enabled him to exert an influence in every major country in the world.

There is some uncertainty even about his name: it has come to us in various spellings, and there are even theories that this was not his name at all, but that of an actor whom the dramatist used to disguise his true identity. Since in this essay I intend to discuss the anti- Semitic play he wrote when in Nazi Germany, I shall use the German form of his given name, and avoid all orthographical controversy by abbreviating his surname: I shall call him Wilhelm S. Although we cannot be sure that he was actually German, there is no doubt about the great success he enjoyed there.