Svengali

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title: "Svengali" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["characters-in-british-novels-of-the-19th-century", "fantasy-film-characters", "literary-characters-introduced-in-1894", "fictional-hypnotists", "fictional-jews", "male-literary-villains", "trilby-(novel)", "male-characters-in-literature", "antisemitism-in-literature", "archetypal-names"] description: "Fictional character from the 1894 novel Trilby by George du Maurier" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svengali" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Fictional character from the 1894 novel Trilby by George du Maurier ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Svengali_as_a_spider_in_his_web.jpg" caption="web]]. Illustration by [[George du Maurier]] (1895)."] ::

Svengali () 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 orphan girl working in Paris, and makes her into a famous singer.

Definition

Since 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.

Novel

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Wilton_Lackaye_(SAYRE_11763).jpg" caption="[[Wilton Lackaye]] 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 yet still "clean enough to suit (his own) kind". 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."

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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, 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.

References

References

1. Rosenberg, Edgar. (1960). "From Shylock to Svengali: Jewish Stereotypes in English Fiction". Stanford University Press.
2. Seelymarch, Katharine Q.. (13 March 2015). "Defense in Marathon Bombing Has Echo of Clarence Darrow". [[The New York Times]].
3. "The Project Gutenberg eBook of Trilby, by George du Maurier.". Project Gutenberg.
4. Wald, Gayle. (26 September 2011). "How Svengali Lost His Jewish Accent".
5. Orwell, George. (2000). "George Orwell: The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters. An age like this, 1920–1940". David R. Godine Publisher.
6. 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).
7. (3 April 1914). ""Svengali" mit Ferdinand Bonn in der Titelrolle". Neue Freie Presse.

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