Grace Aguilar
Grace Aguilar ( born June 2, 1816 in London, † September 16, 1847 in Frankfurt am Main ) was an English writer of Sephardic descent. In addition to novels, she wrote essays and articles on historical topics, in particular to Jewish history. Aguilar is considered the first woman who wrote in English about Judaism. In their time, their works were very popular.
Life
The first years of her life Aguilar in London. Her parents were Spanish immigrants marranischer descent; her father Emanuel Aguilar was a merchant and an important figure in the Jewish community, her mother Sarah Dias Fernandes Aguilar led a small private school for boys. Aguilar was taught by both parents at home. Since all family members were prone to health, the family spent a lot of time outside of the big city in Devonshire. Your local church attendance presented their first encounter with the British Protestantism dar.
Aguilar was considered extraordinarily formed, but was strongly under the influence and her mother's control and barely moving in circles outside their own family. Even after the onset of her literary success, the independent travel were not permitted, as opposed to her two younger brothers who made careers abroad. After the death of her father in 1845 she fed the family with the income from her literary work alone. 1847 Aguilar spent the last months of her life seriously ill in Germany. Her mother, who had accompanied them there, had there hopes for medical help; However, Aguilar died in September of this year, after they had already lost the ability to speak some time ago. She is buried in Frankfurt.
Work
Although seven of her novels were published posthumously by her mother, Aguilar was a very popular writer during his lifetime and was translated into several foreign languages. Her first works were historical romances. Typical of this period of creativity that is only published in 1850 and translated into German and Hebrew The Vale of Cedars, which is based in the time of the Spanish Inquisition. The main characters are Jews who must practice their faith in secrecy. Later, Aguilar turned increasingly to translations as well as theological and biographical writings. In this phase, it gained its greatest notoriety. They dealt with themes such as the emancipation of women in the context of Judaism and with the relationship between Judaism and humanism. Appeared in 1844 Women of Israel, a collective biography of different women in the Bible and the Talmud. In the last years of her life Aguilar turned increasingly to fiction. Works such as Home Influence and A Mother's Recompense are applied less emancipatory; Women tend to occur in accordance with the Victorian ideals as strong mothers who have little social freedoms outside their families.
Aguilar's religious writings often represent distinctive theological positions; mostly they are created enlightening and try to impart knowledge about the Jewish culture and history. You set the goal to reduce prejudices at a wide readership. Background of these efforts was their distrust of Catholicism, which took place at this time in the context of Catholic Emancipation in the UK more widely. In particular, they feared the Catholic influence on literature. Time of their lives they brought Catholicism in connection with anti-Semitism and the oppression of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews who had anchored in their own family history.
Even as a translator Aguilar occurred; In 1838 she published Defended Israel, a translation from the French of a work of Isaac Orobio de Castro. Already in 1835 they also had anonymously published a book of poems entitled The Magic Wreath.
Reception
Although her fiction has been included primarily well by the critics, the religious writings had the greatest impact on Aguilar's reputation as an author. Sharpe's Magazine called in a review of The Days of Bruce the novel as indeed succeeded in their descriptions of Judaism in comparison, but as unique. In the strongest critical response came Women of Israel, which was partially taught until well into the 1950s Sunday school. Her poems were, however, less popular. The American Anglist Michael Galchinsky Aguilar sees as the most important voice of British Jewry their time, which have strengthened both the position of the Jews against the Christians and the Jewish women compared to men.
Today Aguilar and her work are still little known. A branch of the New York Public Library is named after her.
Bibliography
- The Magic Wreath (1835 )
- Israel Defended (1838 )
- The Spirit of Judaism (1842 )
- Women of Israel ( 1844)
- Records of Israel ( 1844)
- The Jewish Faith ( 1846)
- History of the Jews in England (1847 )
- Home Influence ( 1847)
- The Vale of Cedars ( 1850)
- A Mother's Recompense ( 1851)
- Woman's Friendship ( 1851)
- The Days of Bruce (1852 )
- Women 's Friendship (1853 )
- Home Scenes and Heart Studies (1853 )
- Sabbath Thoughts and Sacred communings (1853 )