svengali
{{Short description|Fictional character from the 1894 novel Trilby by George du Maurier}}
{{about|the fictional character}}
{{EngvarB|date=August 2018}}
File:Svengali as a spider in his web.jpg in his web. Illustration by George du Maurier (1895).]]
Svengali ({{IPAc-en|s|v|ɛ|ŋ|ˈ|ɡ|ɑː|l|i}}) is a character in the novel Trilby which was first published in 1894 by George du Maurier. Svengali is a Jewish man who seduces, dominates and exploits Trilby, a young half-Irish girl, and makes her into a famous singer.{{cite book |last=Rosenberg |first=Edgar |title=From Shylock to Svengali: Jewish Stereotypes in English Fiction |publisher=Stanford University Press |year=1960}}
Definition
After the book's publication in 1894, the word "svengali" has come to refer to a person who, with evil intent, dominates, manipulates and controls another.
In court, the "Svengali defence" is a legal tactic that portrays the defendant as a pawn in the scheme of a greater, and more influential, criminal mastermind.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/14/us/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-boston-marathon-bombing-defense-strategy.html|title=Defense in Marathon Bombing Has Echo of Clarence Darrow|first=Katharine Q.|last=Seelymarch|newspaper=The New York Times|date=13 March 2015|access-date=26 June 2016}}
Novel
File:Wilton Lackaye (SAYRE 11763).jpg as Svengali (1905)]]
Svengali is a stereotypical antisemitic portrayal of an Ashkenazic (Eastern European) Jew, complete with "bold, black, beady Jew's eyes" and a "hoarse, rasping, nasal, throaty rook's caw, his big yellow teeth baring themselves in a mongrel canine snarl". He is continually filthy and yet still "clean enough to suit (his own) kind".{{Cite web |title=The Project Gutenberg eBook of Trilby, by George du Maurier.|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/39858/39858-h/39858-h.htm |access-date=17 May 2022 |publisher=Project Gutenberg}}{{Cite web|last=Wald|first=Gayle|author-link=Gayle Wald|date=26 September 2011|title=How Svengali Lost His Jewish Accent|url=https://soundstudiesblog.com/2011/09/26/how-svengali-lost-his-jewish-accent/ |access-date=17 May 2022|website=Sounding Out! |language=en}} George Orwell wrote that Svengali, who while cleverer than the Englishmen, is evil, effeminate, and physically repugnant, was "a sinister caricature of the traditional type" and an example of "the prevailing form of antisemitism."{{Cite book |last=Orwell |first=George |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zaxG_3ivhVAC |title=George Orwell: The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters. An age like this, 1920–1940 |date=2000 |publisher=David R. Godine Publisher |isbn=978-1-56792-136-6 |language=en}}
{{quote|(Svengali) would either fawn or bully, and could be grossly impertinent. He had one kind of cynical humour, which was more offensive than amusing, and always laughed at the wrong thing, at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and his laughter was always derisive, and full of malice.Du Maurier, George. Trilby. Harper's New Monthly Magazine. Volume 88, number 525. February 1894. (https://books.google.com/books?id=F2EwAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA329#v=onepage&q&f=false p. 329).}}
In the novel, Svengali transforms Trilby into a great singer by using hypnosis. Unable to perform without Svengali's help, Trilby becomes entranced.
Portrayals
Svengali was almost immediately stripped of his Jewishness in portrayals. Svengali was first portrayed by the English actor Herbert Beerbohm Tree in London and by the actor Wilton Lackaye in the United States in the stage play of 1895, Trilby. The story has also been used in several movies.
The character was portrayed in the following films which were all titled Svengali: first by Ferdinand Bonn in the silent film of 1914,{{cite news |title="Svengali" mit Ferdinand Bonn in der Titelrolle |url=https://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?apm=0&aid=nfp&datum=19140403&seite=22 |access-date=8 January 2022 |work=Neue Freie Presse |date=3 April 1914 |page=22}} then by Paul Wegener in the silent film of 1927, by John Barrymore in 1931, by Donald Wolfit in 1954 (in Technicolor), and by Peter O'Toole in the film of 1983, which was a modernised version made for television and co-starred Jodie Foster. In the movie of March 1983 however, the names of the characters were changed.
The character "Levi Svengali" was portrayed by actor and director Ash Avildsen in the television series Paradise City released by Amazon Prime Video in March 2021.{{cite web |url=https://www.emmys.com/news/online-originals/paradise-city-found |title=Paradise City Found |last=Schafer |first=Juli |author-link= |date=9 September 2020 |publisher=Television Academy |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221022080229/https://www.emmys.com/news/online-originals/paradise-city-found |archive-date=22 October 2022}}
See also
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{cite book |last=du Maurier |first=George |year=1894 |title=Trilby |url=https://archive.org/details/trilbynovelwithi00dumauoft |volume=1 |location=London, England |publisher=Osgood, McIlvaine & Co. |oclc=6326099 |ol=OL14046193M |ol-access=free |access-date=22 October 2022 |postscript=none}}; [https://archive.org/details/trilbygeorge02dumarich vol. 2]; [https://archive.org/details/trilbygeorge03dumarich/ vol. 3].
- {{cite AV media |people=Mayo, Archie (director) |date=1931 |title=Svengali |url=https://archive.org/details/SvengaliJohnBarrymoreBKCap1931 |access-date=22 October 2022 |publisher=Warner Bros. Pictures}}
{{Trilby (novel)}}
{{Authority control}}
Category:Characters in British novels of the 19th century
Category:Fantasy film characters
Category:Literary characters introduced in 1894
Category:Male literary villains
Category:Male characters in literature