From images of the 19th- and 20th-century stereotypical Jew in literature, this book goes on to explore the unexpected parallels and ironic reversals between a cultural dispensation that had ambivalent responses to Jews and Jews who became exponents of that very tradition.

Acknowledgements ; Preface ; 1. The Jew in the Museum ; 2. The Temple of Culture and the Market for Letters:The Jew and the Way We Write Now ; 3. The Mania for the Middlebrow: Trilby, the Jew, and the Middlebrow Imaginary ; 4. Henry James and the Discourses of Anti-Semitism ; 5. Henry James among the Jews ; Afterword: Beyond the Battle of the Blooms

"A very smart study that investigates the evolution of `the Jew' in liberal culture worship in an admirably thorough and perhaps even definitive manner. It is also engagingly written throughout, managing the hat-trick of cultural theoretics without even the slightest hint of awkward, jargoned prose....[Freedman's] examination of how the mid-to-late-century New York Jewish intelligentsia became messily entangled in this web is chock full of excellent research and fascinating `insider' narratives, as well as nuanced insights into where the profession sits today in terms of these academic Jewish psycho-dramas....Freedman's renewed interest in Henry James forms the centerpiece of this study....[He develops] some compelling readings of the Jewish characters and their associated implications throughout James's writing, leading to the most central example, The Golden Bowl."--IEnglish Literature in Transition: 1880-1920 "Where The Temple of Culture differs markedly from the usual accounts of literary anti-Semitism is that it also explores the response of Jewish individuals (academics, publishers and New York freethinkers) to the manifold discourses which brought together Jews and culture in increasingly odd conjunctions....Achieves a great deal in a relatively short but remarkably intelligent book....The Temple of Culture has, it is to be hoped, changed the terms of debate away from the many heated and fruitless exchanges which have steadfastly ignored the fundamental ambivalences which remain at the heart of Anglo-American culture."--The Times Literary Supplement "...a profoundly important...analysis of the rise and decline of literary high culture in the past century and of the crucial, shifting role of Jews in negotiating and mediating that culture...This is a fascinating account, as much for what it leaves out as for what it includes...Freedman's work could well prove enormously helpful to Christians and religious Jews alike in understanding the current place of literary high culture in our society...Freedman's book is an excellent example of a sophisticated, self-confident, and mature postmodernist criticism, weaving the contemporary theoretical discourses of the past thirty years into a near-seamless whole."--Christianity and Literature "...[an] informative study....Recommended for comprehensive collections serving upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty."--Choice "Jonathan Freedman's book, The Temple of Culture, is a surprising and original look at the problematic position of Jews (and their image) in the rise of modern 'high' culture. Focussing on British writers from Trollope to De Maurier (and those Americans, like Henry James, who imagined themselves British), Freedman provides a compelling and well-documented introduction to the underlying tensions within the 'English' literature of the last turn of the century and beyond. This is a major addition to the literature on Jews, their representation, and high Anglophone culture. A must read!"--Sander Gilman, University of Chicago "A very smart study that investigates the evolution of `the Jew' in liberal culture worship in an admirably thorough and perhaps even definitive manner. It is also engagingly written throughout, managing the hat-trick of cultural theoretics without even the slightest hint of awkward, jargoned prose....[Freedman's] examination of how the mid-to-late-century New York Jewish intelligentsia became messily entangled in this web is chock full of excellent research and fascinating `insider' narratives, as well as nuanced insights into where the profession sits today in terms of these academic Jewish psycho-dramas....Freedman's renewed interest in Henry James forms the centerpiece of this study....[He develops] some compelling readings of the Jewish characters and their associated implications throughout James's writing, leading to the most central example, The Golden Bowl."--IEnglish Literature in Transition: 1880-1920 "Where The Temple of Culture differs markedly from the usual accounts of literary anti-Semitism is that it also explores the response of Jewish individuals (academics, discourses which brought together Jews and culture in increasingly odd conjunctions....Achieves a great deal in a relatively short but remarkably intelligent book....The Temple of Culture has, it is to be hoped, changed the terms of debate away from the many heated and fruitless exchanges which have steadfastly ignored the fundamental ambivalences which remain at the heart of Anglo-American culture."--The Times Literary Supplement "...a profoundly important...analysis of the rise and decline of literary high culture in the past century and of the crucial, shifting role of Jews in negotiating and mediating that culture...This is a fascinating account, as much for what it leaves out as for what it includes...Freedman's work could well prove enormously helpful to Christians and religious Jews alike in understanding the current place of literary high culture in our society...Freedman's book is an excellent example of a sophisticated, self-confident, and mature postmodernist criticism, weaving the contemporary theoretical discourses of the past thirty years into a near-seamless whole."--Christianity and Literature "...[an] informative study....Recommended for comprehensive collections serving upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty."--Choice "Jonathan Freedman's book, The Temple of Culture, is a surprising and original look at the problematic position of Jews (and their image) in the rise of modern 'high' culture. Focussing on British writers from Trollope to De Maurier (and those Americans, like Henry James, who imagined themselves British), Freedman provides a compelling and well-documented introduction to the underlying tensions within the 'English' literature of the last turn of the century and beyond. This is a major addition to the literature on Jews, their representation, and high Anglophone culture. A must read!"--Sander Gilman, University of Chicago "In this pathbreaking work, Jonathan Freedman shows how the dilemma of Jewishness is inseparable from the ambiguities posed by high culture itself as it has evolved in England and America over the past century and a half. Freedman's meticulous, nuanced readings of novelists as diverse as Trollope and James, du Maurier and Philip Roth abound in startling insights and compose a dialect that takes us far beyond familiar accounts of the 'dirty little secret' of literary anti-semitism. His pages on the Anglo-American critical tradition, from Matthew Arnold to Harold Bloom, offer an engrossing narrative-easily the best I know-of the many ways in which the study of literature continues to enact the rich and complex drama of cultural identity." --Sam Tanenhaus, author of Whitaker Chambers: A Biogaphy "Jonathan Freedman has a story to tell so historically textured and so elegantly re-enacted that even the most postmodern reader feels the tingle of enlightenment."--Tom Ferraro, Duke University, author of Ethnic Passages "A unique contribution to this new, self consciously ideological view of the Jewish subject... Freedman constructs a historically intricate argument for how Jews served the literary establishment and in turn used that establishment to shape an assimilated identity. Understanding this process, we can understand why, only now, Jews have begun to open themselves to the kind of interpretive work that other minorities have engaged in for quite some time." Michigan Quarterly Review "This book makes available important insights about the texts with which it is concerned. Its chapters should be standard reading for scholars of James, Du Maurier, and Trollope. The book should appeal to those interested in the development of the concepts of culture, taste, and the "brows." Finally, it will be of interest for its wonderful analysis of the role played by American Jewish intellectuals from Lionel Trilling to the Blooms (Harold and Allan) in the culture wars."--Modern Language Quarterly "Freedman traces a complex history with erudite, nuanced rigor worthy both of his key interlocuter, Henry James, and the midcentury scholars--Philip Rahv, Leon Edel, Lionel Trilling--who took possession of James's legacy... crucial and fascinating... In measured judgement, Freedman steps away from the rigorously postmodern, infinitely regressive unpacking of Jewishness as (mass)-mediated contestation to enter the contest himself, deploying, with inspired dexterity, a fictional figure--Svengali!--who first came into the world by outlandish goyish projection."--Thomas J. Ferraro, American Literature, March 2002 rucial and fascinating