Anthony Hecht at the Iowa Writer's Workshop in 1947.
In an essay for
The Hudson Review, Hirsch explores how the vexed representation of Jews in the modern canon influenced the life and work of Anthony Hecht, who graduated from Bard in 1944 and taught at the College from 1952–55 and 1962–66. Hirsch illuminates that while Hecht was deeply influenced as a poet by Shakespeare, among other English masters, he never forgot his first experience of reading
The Merchant of Venice in grade school. “It was mortifying, and in complicated ways. I was being asked to admire the work of the greatest master of the English language, and one universally revered, who was slandering all those of my race and religion. I was not even allowed to do this in private, but under the scrutiny and supervision of public instruction. And it took many class periods to get through the whole text. I can also remember the unseemly pleasure of my teacher in relishing all the slanders against the Jews in general and Shylock in particular. It was a wounding experience and the beginning of a kind of education for which I received no grades. And it has continued for the rest of my life,” wrote Hecht.
Post Date: 10-26-2021