Publisher's Synopsis
Differentiated book- It has a historical context with research of the time-The Maltese Jew is a play by Christopher Marlowe, written in 1589 or 1590. The plot revolves mainly around a Maltese Jewish merchant named Barabas. The original story combines religious conflict, intrigue and revenge, in a context of the fight for supremacy between Spain and the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean taking place on the island of Malta. There has been extensive debate about the representation of Jews in the play and how the Elizabethan audience would have viewed it. The play begins with the character Machiavel, a Senegalese ghost based on Niccolò Machiavelli, who presents "the tragedy of a Jew". Machiavel expresses the cynical view that power is amoral, and says: "I count religion as a child's toy, and I maintain that there is no sin but ignorance."Uprising of the Siege of Malta (Charles-Philippe Larivière, c. 1842). Marlowe was inspired by the great Christian-Muslim conflict of the Great Siege of Malta in 1565. Barabas begins the work in his counting house. Stripped of all he has to protest against the Maltese governor taking the wealth of the country's entire Jewish population to pay the Turks at war, he develops a murderous streak.
