The Merchant of Venice

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The Merchant of Venice
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Comic Harmony . . .

• Fairy Tale Qualities
• Simple oppositions with stock characters (the
  clown, the blocking figure)
• Happy ending with multiple marriages
• Triumph of mercy over law

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. . .or Tragic Dissonance?

• Imposing, grand central figure of Shylock
• Considered Anti-Semitic by some
• Shades of sexism, racism and implied
  homosexuality
• Ends with humiliation and mockery

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About this most controversial of plays

• Written by Shakespeare ca. 1596
• Source Il Pecorone (meaning The Simpleton)
• No play other than Hamlet has been staged more
  frequently

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Setting Venice

• A politically independent state
• Relaxed sexual morals love of pleasure
• Tolerance of different nationalities religions
• A place of great wealth where trade and
  exploration was center

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Historical Context

• Shylock, who is Jewish, highlights historical
  contradictions of the time
• The Jewish race seen as a necessary evil
• Necessary for trade, capital ventures, and loans
  to the state and to kings for exploration wars

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. . .but also considered evil

• They practiced usury, which was forbidden
• They were wrongly blamed for the crucifixion of
  Christ
• They were seen as foreign, exotic, threatening
• The Prioresss Tale

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What about usury?

• From Latin usus, uti, meaning use a sum paid for
  the USE of money
• (Interest!!)
• Could we live without it?
• Against the law of nature for money to beget
  money
• Biblical injunctions against it (Luke 630-31)
• Likened to prostitution, another necessary evil

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Nonetheless, 16th Century Europe desperately
needed this practice of usury

• It was a time of great exploration and expanding
  trade
• The growing nation-states and kings were always
  in need of money
• It was absolutely essential for the growth of a
  capitalistic economy
• There was a debate raging over usury at the time
  Shakespeare wrote the play

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The question remains Was Shakespeare
anti-Semitic?

• His audience probably was, even though they could
  not have known any Jews
• Jews were expelled from England in 1290 and did
  not return until after Shakespeares day
• Critics cite the character of Shylock as evidence
  both for and against the proposition
• Look closely at this portrait by Chandos
• We will revisit this question!

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• In 1864, the critic J. Hain Friswell wrote in his
  Life Portraits of William Shakespeare
• One cannot too readily imagine our essentially
  English Shakespeare to have been a dark, heavy
  man, with a foreign expression, of a decidedly
  Jewish physiognomy, thin curly hair, a somewhat
  lubricious mouth, red-edged eyes, wanton lips,
  with a coarse expression, and his ears tricked
  out with ear-rings.