Svengali

This article is about the fictional character. For other uses, see Svengali (disambiguation).

Svengali is a fictional character of George du Maurier's 1894 novel Trilby, a hypnotist who makes the title character into a famous singer.

The word "svengali", has come to be used as a common noun referring to a person who, with evil intent, controls another person by persuasion or deceit. The Svengali may use pseudo-kindness and manipulation to get the other person to turn over their autonomy.

In the novel

Svengali "would either fawn or bully and could be grossly impertinent. He had a kind of cynical humour that 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".

In the novel, Svengali transforms Trilby into a great singer by using hypnosis. Unable to perform without Svengali's help, Trilby becomes entranced. The novel is less a discussion of the relationship between Svengali and Trilby than an evocation of "bohemian" Paris during the 1850s.

Svengali as an example of Jewish stereotyping

The scholar Edgar Rosenberg calls Svengali an example of anti-Semitic stereotyping in English fiction, and identifies him as a version of Ahasver, The wandering Jew; he notes a reference to "Svengali walking up and down the earth seeking whom he might cheat, betray, exploit..."

Portrayals

The character was portrayed by many silent movie versions of the story and by talking movies, played by John Barrymore in a 1931 movie of the same name, by Donald Wolfit in a 1954 version in Technicolor, and by Peter O'Toole in a 1983 made-for-television modernized version, also in colour, co-featuring Jodie Foster. In the 1983 movie, the names of the characters were changed except for "Svengali", which had become famous.

External links

• http://www.archive.org/details/SvengaliJohnBarrymoreBKCap1931