Nineteenth-century European literature featured a vogue of evil Semitic characters

Evidence

Dracula is one example of the Semitic characters that were in vogue in European literature, but there are others. In Trilby, Svengali is described as an “Oriental Israelite Hebrew Jew, [which is] the source of his evil nature.” He is a monster, but unlike Dracula his malevolence is com- pletely determined by his Jewishness. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 528

Categorization

• QUESTION: In Svengali and Shylock, what role does Muslim or ‘Oriental’ coding play alongside Jewishness? The reader’s thesis on the Muslim monster might map onto this broader Semitic monster tradition.