By
– November 15, 2011
The biographer’s craft compels him to recount the life of his subject; his art enables him to slip inside his subject’s mind and heart and bring him to life. In Benjamin Disraeli, the ninth book (of twenty- seven projected) in Schocken’s “Jewish Encounters” series, Adam Kirsch vividly reveals Disraeli, the novelist-politician, and the Victorian age which produced him.
Kirsch deconstructs his subject by analyzing Disraeli’s fictional creations and conveying how they reflect his ambitions and insecurities. Born Jewish into a nation with so few Jews England lacked even legal discrimination, unlike the rest of Europe, Disraeli manufactured his family’s history and assumed a name which two generations previously had simply been Israeli. This best known of England’s Jews, in fact, spent most of his adult years as a Christian, having been baptized at twelve years of age, together with his siblings. Despite lacking familiarity with Jewish customs, as a young man and as Prime Minister Disraeli was subjected to ridicule and derided as a stranger, regarded as an opportunist, and characterized as stereotypically arrogant and aloof, all as a result of his genealogy. Yet similar to George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda, Kirsch observes, Disraeli believed that “there was less shame in being a Jew than in trying to deny it.”
His early autobiographical novels, which are insightfully summarized by Kirsch, provide a revealing selfportrait. As Disraeli noted, “In Vivian Grey I have portrayed my active and real ambition; in Alroy my ideal ambition; The Psychological Romance is a development of my poetic character. This trilogy is the secret history of my feelings.” And when one adds Kirsch’s analysis of such illuminating novels as Tancred and Coningsby, a roadmap to understanding Disraeli’s complex and provocative personality can be drawn. These works provide the reader with a key to discerning how the Jew was perceived in Victorian England, as well as in Europe, and how this powerful political figure influenced the Victorian perception of honor and justice.
Identified closely with Queen Victoria, having been elected to Parliament in the year she assumed the throne, Disraeli served only one monarch. From his role in enacting the Reform Act of 1867, which “transformed England into a democracy,” to his serendipitous coup in securing the Suez Canal, to his cautious advocacy of Jewish achievement of power, Disraeli exerted oversized influence on Victoria’s age. And despite a limited understanding of traditional Jewish practices, his self-identification as a Jew was complete. Kirsch has woven a nuanced tale of a complex man whose mark on history continues to be felt today.
Kirsch deconstructs his subject by analyzing Disraeli’s fictional creations and conveying how they reflect his ambitions and insecurities. Born Jewish into a nation with so few Jews England lacked even legal discrimination, unlike the rest of Europe, Disraeli manufactured his family’s history and assumed a name which two generations previously had simply been Israeli. This best known of England’s Jews, in fact, spent most of his adult years as a Christian, having been baptized at twelve years of age, together with his siblings. Despite lacking familiarity with Jewish customs, as a young man and as Prime Minister Disraeli was subjected to ridicule and derided as a stranger, regarded as an opportunist, and characterized as stereotypically arrogant and aloof, all as a result of his genealogy. Yet similar to George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda, Kirsch observes, Disraeli believed that “there was less shame in being a Jew than in trying to deny it.”
His early autobiographical novels, which are insightfully summarized by Kirsch, provide a revealing selfportrait. As Disraeli noted, “In Vivian Grey I have portrayed my active and real ambition; in Alroy my ideal ambition; The Psychological Romance is a development of my poetic character. This trilogy is the secret history of my feelings.” And when one adds Kirsch’s analysis of such illuminating novels as Tancred and Coningsby, a roadmap to understanding Disraeli’s complex and provocative personality can be drawn. These works provide the reader with a key to discerning how the Jew was perceived in Victorian England, as well as in Europe, and how this powerful political figure influenced the Victorian perception of honor and justice.
Identified closely with Queen Victoria, having been elected to Parliament in the year she assumed the throne, Disraeli served only one monarch. From his role in enacting the Reform Act of 1867, which “transformed England into a democracy,” to his serendipitous coup in securing the Suez Canal, to his cautious advocacy of Jewish achievement of power, Disraeli exerted oversized influence on Victoria’s age. And despite a limited understanding of traditional Jewish practices, his self-identification as a Jew was complete. Kirsch has woven a nuanced tale of a complex man whose mark on history continues to be felt today.
Noel Kriftcher was a professor and administrator at Polytechnic University, having previously served as Superintendent of New York City’s Brooklyn & Staten Island High Schools district.
