Is The Merchant of Venice anti-Semitic?

[stanley2]

It is then helpful to compare Bevington's "However much we may come to sympathize with Shylock's misfortunes.........[he] remains essentially the villain of a love comedy" to Professor Leggatt's comment regarding Antonio: "In the trial his courageous acceptance of death shades into an actual yearning for it." One may argue that we may exchange the two names Antonio and Shylock and the opinion still is, as Professor Leggatt put it, "allowed" by the text. In AS YOU LIKE IT, Duke Frederick's line, "Till thou canst quit thee by thy brother's mouth"(AYI3.1.11), echoes Antonio's "so please my lord the Duke and all the court / To quit the fine for one half of his goods"(MV4.1.396-7). Professor Dusinberre glosses the conversation in AS YOU LIKE IT: "The confrontation between the two villainous brothers- Frederick and Oliver- contrasts with the comradeship of Duke Senior and Orlando at the end of 2.7." It plainly also echoes the confrontation of Antonio and Shylock. They are both villains in a love comedy.

[stanley2]

We have noted that Jaques in AS YOU LIKE IT echoes Antonio(see post 277). In one of Hamlet's speeches(HAMLET2.2.575-634) we find him responding to an excerpt spoken by an actor: "Is it not monstrous that this player here, / But in a fiction, in a dream of passion.......What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, / That he should weep for her?" So, one might ask much the same question regarding Antonio and Leah. As we have also seen, the author also allows one to regard Antonio to be homosexual and his desire is or was instead for Bassanio. Or perhaps Mercutio describes Antonio: "this driveling love is like a great natural that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole"(R&J2.4.90-1).

[stanley2]

In the collection of essays put together by the Mahons we find by Professor Gray: "When the actress playing Portia launches into the play's most famouis speech, "The quality of mercy is not strained," is her character delivering a prepared speech or is it an impromtu argument? By the same token then, is her last minute legal quibble that saves Antonio's life a well-prepared piece of courtroom histrionics, or a genuine flash of desperate inspiration?" One might then suggest that the author wrote the play to foster discussion. It is firstly a conversation piece.

[Danik 2016]

Hi, Stanley

I would say it depends on the time context. I think, Shakespeare´s carefully chiseled barock verses can be considered anything but not an improviso.

[stanley2]

In the first scene of the play Gratiano says: "Let me play the fool: / With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come." In the court scene it is Gratiano who first responds to Portia's "Tarry a little" speech: "O upright judge! Mark, Jew. O learned judge!"(MV4.1.321). One might argue then that we are not going to see a character die in the same manner as did the real life Marlowe. In Act 5, scene 3 of R&J we find Romeo and Count Paris threaten each other and Paris is killed. In the last scene of MV we find Antonio saying: "I am the unhappy subject of these quarrels"(MV5.1.251). Portia replies: Sir, grieve not you. You are welcome notwithstanding." We then have another topic to discuss. What, exactly, does she have in mind by "notwithstanding"? One suggestion is found earlier in the scene. When Portia arrives Lorenzo says: "That is the voice, /Or I am much deceived, of Portia"(MV5.1.119). Portia replies: "He knows me as the blind man knows the cuckoo, /By the bad voice." One can easily imagine Antonio, as a young man, standing in the street below Leah's window, playing a lute and singing the song from MY FAIR LADY: "People stop and stare, they don't bother me......." Like Romeo and Count Paris, Shylock and Antonio were rival lovers.

[stanley2]

In post #377, Danik wrote: "Maybe he also wanted to recall another of his plays," or something near to this. I guess she had in mind Shakespeare's TROILIS AND CRESIDA(see post #376). I have not read the play. I have read some of Professor Bate's notes on the play in his book SOUL OF THE AGE.

[Danik 2016]

Yes. And if I recollect rightly also the parody play of the workers in A Summer Night´s Dream.

[stanley2]

Bonjour. "Well shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with a good grace"(MND5.1.264). One might add something from ROMEO AND JULIET: "Lady, by yonder blessed moon I vow / That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops"(ROM2.1.150-1). In due course, TROILUS AND CRESSIDA is thought to have been written a few years after MV. One might quote, however, Parrott's comments: "All in all a strange and mystifying play. So far as the love-story goes it is a comedy of disillusion.........On the other hand some of the speeches, especially those of Ulysses are in Shakespeare's gravest and most thoughtful vein." This might help explain why it is hard to find mention that the major classical allusion in MV is the conclusion of THE ODYSSEY.

[stanley2]

One might add one more note regarding Antonio's sadness. Perhaps Antonio does agree that "the duke / Will never grant this forfeiture to hold"(MV3.3.27-8). He is aware that the duke has sent for Portia's cousin to determine the case. He is hopelessly in love with Bellario, the learned doctor. He is hoping that he will get to talk with him. By convincing Bassanio to give his ring to Balthasar, Antonio hopes that the young doctor of Rome will put in a good word for him.

[stanley2]

One might return to Hawkman's comment "Yes, Shakespeare gives the audience what they want, but at the same time he questions their preconceptions." One means then is that he presents Shylock and his co-villain Antonio from different "angles" as Charles D suggested way back in this thread. That is, Antonio's speech in Act 3, scene one(see post #171) is such that Antonio may be distracted by a hopeless love for Portia's cousin Doctor Bellario and the possibility that Bellario will be deciding the case.

[Danik 2016]

Now I am totally confused: In the play Bellario is Portia in disguise. The real Bellario never appears. That would mean that Antonio is in love with Portia. But although he is very thankful as regards Portia, his real love seems to be Bassanio.And warranting \bassanios fidelity means to lose him for ever.

[stanley2]

Perhaps Charles Dickens wrote A TALE OF TWO CITIES after seeing a performance of MV onstage. In due course, Portia plays a young doctor of laws named Balthasar. Shakespeare, then, may be recommending that one should practice what religion one finds suitable. Or perhaps you're thinking of TWELFTH NIGHT where Olivia is fond of Viola disguised as a young man and finally marries Viola's twin brother.

[stanley2]

If memory serves, the late William F. Buckley Jr. often said that reasonable people may disagree. I picked up William L. Shirer's book THE NIGHTMARE YEARS the other day. One is reminded that during the Nazi regime in Germany reasonable people who disagreed were beaten and murdered.

[Danik 2016]

Probably William F. Buckley Jr. was thinking of equals.When power is involved I am reminded of the Brazilian saying: "He who can, gives orders.He who has sense obeys."

[stanley2]

And the scene in R&J where Mercutio and Tybalt are killed: "Up sir, go with me. / I charge thee in the Prince's name obey"(ROM3.1.141-2). As you noted before, one may take up various topics and directions. Buckley was speaking to a general television audience on his show FIRING LINE. Professor Edelman, in his book about the stage history of MV wrote: "Another persistent myth about THE MERCHANT OF VENICE is that it was the Nazi's favorite play, but as Hortmann notes, although 'unser Shakespeare' continued to be performed throughout the Third Reich, after 1933 the number of productions of MERCHANT dropped to less than a third of what it had been before Hitler came to power, and Berlin saw only one production during the entire era." Shirer wrote that the Nazi's were quite ignorant of other cultures and languages.