Is The Merchant of Venice anti-Semitic?

Professor Greenblatt, in his WILL IN THE WORLD book, is near to Hawkman regarding the strife Shakespeare himself faced: "In 1596, at the funeral of Hamnet[Shakespeare's son], the issue would almost certainly have surfaced. The boy's soul needed the help of those who loved and cared for him. John Shakespeare, who had virtually raised his grandson, may well have urged his prosperous son William to pay for masses for the dead child, just as likely wanted masses to to be said for his own soul...........If this delicate subject was broached, did William angrily shake his head or instead quietly pay for clandestine Masses for Hamnet's soul?" In Professor Bevington's book, SHAKESPEARE"S IDEA'S, MORE THINGS IN HEAVEN AND EARTH, we find: "But how, if at all, did Shakespeare respond to the horror of Hamnet's death when it occurred?............Yet despite the seemingly huge importance of the father-son relationship to Shakespeare, nothing emerges in the plays of 1596 and immediately afterwards. THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, AS YOU LIKE IT, 1 HENRY IV, HENRY V, JULIUS CAESAR: none of these is concerned with the death of a son." As we have seen, MV is closely linked to ROMEO AND JULIET and AS YOU LIKE IT.

I didn't know or remember that Shakespeare lost his son so early. Do you know the cause of his death?

Unknown. Greenblatt wrote that "One out of three died by the age of ten, and overall mortality rates were by our standards exceedingly high." Bate wrote that "Plague was the single most powerful force shaping his life and those of his contemporaries."

It makes sense. And probably many illnesses and treatments where still unknown. Oi

It is important to note, I think, that scholars, especially editors, explain obscurities in their glossaries that readers might overlook and leave to the reader other things that are still important. One example is Antonio's "You may as well go stand upon the beach / And bid the main flood bate his usual height; / You may as well use question with the wolf"(MV4.1.72-3). This is plainly a deliberate echo of Romeo's speech to his man in the last scene of R&J. In the second scene of AS YOU LIKE IT, Celia, speaking to Touchstone, speaks the phrase "in the great heap of your knowledge." Scholars can't cover everything.

In post #89, Hawkman wrote, "The point I'm making is that the Christians are as morally flawed as Shylock, as was pointed out much earlier." Professor Marjorie Garber, in her book, noted a famous drawing that seems to be at once a rabbit and a duck. Therefore the text indicates that Antonio may be homosexual and also that he may have desired Shylock's wife.

Among the interesting notes from Charles D. and Hawkman we have "he starts in a state of sadness and we have no idea why"(#51). Professors Wilson and Parrott pointed to the Sonnets and R&J which in turn might recall(in our own time) the song from Jimmy Buffet: "Some people claim that there's a woman to blame, but I Know-it's my my own damn fault." Hawkman's "Shylock's relationship and interaction with Antonio constitutes the drama of the piece,"(#50) is also notable. It is Bassanio who is interacting with Shylock in Act 1, scene three before the arrival of Antonio. It is Bassanio who first responds to Shylock when Shylock presents his case before the Duke. Professor Parrott noted that there are four fully developed characters in the play, Antonio, Bassanio, Portia and Shylock.

Is MOV anti-Semitic?


The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes ...



Remarkably beautiful and noble words. However, it is all ironic in that while Christians preach a good, moral lesson, they practice the precise opposite by being brutally merciless upon the man called "the Jew". Thereafter, Shylock is left to wallow in misery while Christians end up profiting by deceiving and crucifying the man. He is made to look evil. They are made to look angelic despite their thieving, dishonesty, and judicial corruption. Highly ironic.

Isaac Asimov's and Harold Goddard's comments on MV in their books, ASIMOV'S GUIDE TO SHAKESPEARE and THE MEANING OF SHAKESPEARE, are worthwhile. Professor Drakakis noted that when Portia says "I am informed throughly of the cause. / Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew?"(MV4.1.174), we also find the word "cause" in the last scene of OTHELLO: "It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul"(OTHELLO5.2.1). The moor of Venice then proceeds to murder Desdemona, whom he thinks has had a love affair.

I agree with hellsapoppin, allbeit the Jew has his saying too. I particularly dislike the characterization of Jessica, his daughter, who is depicted as good, because she robs her father and goes over to the Christians.

I think that Jessica is then another puzzle in this play. In the scene right before the court scene we find: "Nay, you need not fear us, Lorenzo. Lancelot and I are out. He tells me flatly there's no mercy for me in heaven, because I am a Jew's daughter: and he says you are no good member of the commonwealth, for, in converting Jews to Christians, you raise the price of pork"(MV3.5.26-30).

Very ironic. But what did Lorenzo say before she gave that answer?

"I shall grow jealous of you shortly, Lancelot, if you thus get my wife into corners!" I remember my knee-jerk reaction to Graham Midgley's 1960 essay: "Boy is this guy out in left field. If Antonio desired sex with anyone it was with Shylock's wife." I'm not smart enough to come up with anything. My reaction came about by reading Shakespeare. For his 1986 essay, Bloom wrote: "Bardolatry is not always an innocent disease, and produces odd judgments, as when J. Middleton Murry insisted: 'THE MERCHANT OF VENICE is not a problem play; it is a fairy story.' For us, contemporary Jews and Gentiles alike, it had better be a problem play, and not a fairy story. Shylock, Murry admitted, was not 'coherent,' because a Shakespearean character had no need to be coherent. Yet Shylock is is anything but incoherent. His palpable mimetic force enhances his rapacity and viciousness, and works to make an ancient bogeyman come dreadfully alive." We have seen that Shylock is linked throughout to Shakespearean characters before and after MV. The play is both a problem play and in part a fairy story.

In Bevington's introduction, along with his notes regarding "paradox' and "ironies" we have "......spiritual as well as financial. Unless one recognizes these aspects of Bassanio's quest, as well as the clear fairy-tale quality with which Shakespeare deliberately invests this part of the plot, one cannot properly assess Bassanio's role in this romantic comedy." Of Shylock he wrote: "He bears an 'ancient grudge' against Antonio simply because Antonio is 'a Christian.'" The first lines of R&J read: "Two households both alike in dignity, / In fair Verona where we lay our scene / From ancient grudge, break to new mutiny." The fact that the first word is "Two" and that the phrase "ancient grudge" is found in these two instances only in all of Shakespeare is another indication that the author presents two comic villains in MV. Shylock's "How like a fawning publican "(1.3) speech is spoken to the audience. The Clown Lancelet's first speech is also spoken to the audience: "Certainly, my conscience will serve me to run from".....(2.2). Antonio begins the play speaking to Solanio and Salerio, two Salads. The play is full of duos.

Let's return to Hazlitt's comments from 1817: "he becomes a half-favorite with the philosophical part of the audience who are disposed to think that Jewish revenge is at least as good as Christian injuries. Shylock is a 'good hater;' a man no less sinned against than sinning." The phrase "half-favorite" might inspire one to search for the other half and come up with Antonio. One may then reasonably argue that the play rejects Judaism or Christianity. Or one might then add to Lokasona's early "quandry" comment here. If one then considers Bassanio's part in the court scene and the link to the death of Marlowe, one might argue that the author is suggesting that religion might be helpful to anyone who who finds himself in such a situation. That is, all the characters survive the court scene in part because they are religious.

Bevington's comments(#454) came about two years after Bloom's(#453). He was clearly responding to the man from Yale. We have seen that a single speech in the play can be cited to support opposing opinions. For example, Shylock's "I hate him for he is a Christian, But more......"(MV1.3)) echoes Romeo's "Here's much to do with hate, but more with love"(ROM1.1.170).

I think the religious hate in the play is strong with Antonio as well as with Shylock. The strange thing is, the administration of Venice being Christian, that such a court case is at all possible. But there is also the comercial aspect of it. Shylock hates Antonio, as he himself states, because he lends money so cheaply bringing the interest down.

I finally found the quote from the "Your favorite quote from Shakespeare" thread. She wrote only that it's from HAMLET: "Are you like the painting of a sorrow; a face without a heart?"(HAM4.7.123-4). It's near a line from Laertes: "But my revenge will come"(HAM.4.7.31). Earlier in HAMLET, the Ghost says to the Prince: "So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear"(HAM1.5.12). Certainly, the author has some sympathy for the characters in his longest play. Therefore, my first impression of THE MERCHANT OF VENICE was that the author's sympathy was more for Shylock than Antonio. And one might return to John Gross' comment: "I personally think it is absurd to suppose that there is a direct line of descent from Antonio to Hitler, or from Portia to the SS, but that is because I do not believe that the Holocaust was in any way inevitable." Gross and others are rightly concerned about the relationship of folklore in Europe to Shakespeare's play. Still, if one has read some of the Sonnets, it is plain that Antonio may have desired Shylock's wife or even had a love affair.

In Bevington's introduction we also find: "Portia and Nerissa cleverly present their new husbands with a cruel choice:................The two husbands, who have vowed never to part with these wedding rings, must therefore choose between love and friendship. The superior claim of friendship is clear, no matter what the cost, and Portia knows well enough that Bassanio's obedience to this Neoplatonic ideal is an essential part of his virtue..........As Gratiano bawdily points out in the play's last line, the ring is both a spiritual and a sexual symbol of marriage. The resolution of this illusory quarrel also brings to an end the merry battle of the sexes between wives and husbands." I think that we have seen that this play was written to promote discussion.

And if you think of Antonio as concurring with Portia for Bassanio's love, this episode of the ring serves to establish Portia´s rights as wife definitively.

As Professor Greenblatt noted, the death of Dr. Lopez , the Queen's physician, may have been noted by Shakespeare. There is a report that at the execution of Lopez, some in the audience giggled at his last words. Therefore we find in MV the author's interest in what makes people laugh. One example is the contrasting responses from Antonio and Bassanio to Shylock's "merry sport"(MV1.3) proposal. John Gross noted that during the Nazi era the government provided goons and faux scholars during performances. Certainly this discouraged discussion. William Shirer reported that the Nazis jailed hundreds of Christian clergy and though the majority of Germans supported the government at the time one might suggest that doing so also discouraged discussion with tragic results.

It can be interesting to compare the anthology SHAW ON SHAKESPEARE with Ron Rosenbaum's THE SHAKESPEARE WARS. Edwin Wilson's introduction to the former begins: "For many people Bernard Shaw's writing on Shakespeare began as a joke. When he became drama critic of THE SATURDAY REVIEW in the 1890s Shaw attacked Shakespeare with an impudence that had not been seen before, nor is likely to be seen again." To say "attacked" is hyperbole as the following example shows, I think: "With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespear when I measure my mind against his." In Rosenbaum's book there are many interesting interviews with actors, directors and scholars.

Back in post #280 we noted that Oliver in AS YOU LIKE IT echoes the first line of MV, spoken by Antonio. Editors note that Oliver's speech is spoken to the audience: "Farewell, good Charles. - Now will I stir this gamester. I hope I shall see an end of him; for my soul - yet I know not why - hates nothing more than he"(AYL1.1.153-62). Did we note that Shylock's "How like a fawning publican" speech(MV1.3.37-48) is also spoken to the audience? Shylock's "If I can catch him once upon the hip"(line 42) is echoed by Gratiano later: "Now, infidel, I have you on the hip"(MV4.1.330). "Good Charles" is a professional wrestler. I believe that I did note this previously, yet it is important. There are two comic villains in each play.

I don't see Shylock as a comic character.

Thanks Danik. There are two villains in each play. The Duke says to Shylock: "How shalt thou hope for mercy rendering none?"(MV4.1.89). Therefore, the Duke believes that Antonio has done something wrong. Antonio's line, "Let me have judgement and the Jew his will"(MV4.1.84) is problematic. I don't see any way to solve the problem other than to regard Antonio and Shylock as equally culpable.

Let's return to historian Michael Woods IN SEARCH OF SHAKESPEARE where he suggests that there are too many unanswered questions left at the end of the play. I think that we have seen that there are various answers suggested by the links to other plays and poems. The author is also suggesting that we discuss with others such things as Juliet's question "What's Montague?"(ROM2.2.39) and Shylock's "I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes?"(MV3.1.49-50).

I should say that one might well argue that Ron Rosenbaum is a fan of team Portia as well as of team Shylock. Portia's "Tarry a little, there is something else"(MV4.1.313) seems to bring us all back to search the play. He noted that Shylock's "Signior Antonio" speech(MV1.3.105-127) is too full of the letter "s." One then may note that the scrolls that Portia's father included in the gold and silver caskets are also adorned with the same letter: "Some there be that shadows kiss / Such have but a shadow's bliss"(2.9.66-7). Therefore, Shylock is linked to yet another character. In Act 3, scene 5 of R&J we find Juliet exclaiming: "Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!" She is sharing with the reader her opinion of the Nurse. It also is another place where the author makes use of the term "ancient." Is Shakespeare here simply implying that the Nurse is a senior citizen? Or is there more to it?

I don´t remember any more if this nurse had an active role in the play.

As Professor Julia Kristeva noted, R&J, as it has come down to us, was most likely written in late 1596 shortly after the loss of the author's son. It is therefore a kind of elegy. This may be why we find little mention of links to MV. In Norrie Epstein's fine book, THE FRIENDLY SHAKESPEARE, she included an interview with an actor where she asks him if Antonio is gay or homosexual. His answer is that we're not to know. Antonio is a puzzle at the center of the play. The same may be argued regarding Shylock. Shylock, it seems, desires to kill Antonio. Yet the Duke's line, "How shalt thou hope for mercy, rend'ring none?"(MV4.1.89), plainly indicates that Shylock's life is the one in danger.

Back in post #83, Hawkman asks: "Why does Shylock want to kill Antonio?" He notes a long list. Drkshadow03 responds(#84) that the play is in part about the BIBLE. There we read in DEUTERONOMY as translated by Shakespeare's contemporaries that one may not "desire thy neighbor's wife." Portia's father wrote "Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire"(MV2.7.5). One may then suggest that Antonio desired Shylock's wife.

When Bassanio asks Shylock, "Why dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly?"(MV4.1.123), one might note that the line that precedes Bassanio's is Nerissa's: "From both. My lord Bellario greets your grace." It is Nerissa who speaks the line "Do you not remember, lady, in your father's time, a Venetian, a scholar and a soldier, that came hither in company of the Marquis of Montferrat?"(MV1.2.98). As Marlowe was a scholar and a government secret agent, we have another indication that the author had his fellow dramatist in mind. The second to last line of the play, "Well, while I live I'll fear no other thing" might recall Shylock's first line in the play: "Three thousand ducats, well"(MV1.3.1). In the lines that follow the word "well" is repeated twice. In R&J, we find: "How doth my lady? Is my father well? / How fares my Juliet? That I ask again, / For nothing can be ill if she be well. Balthasar replies: "Then she is well, and nothing can be ill"(R&J5.1.17). Eighteen lines later, Romeo says: "Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight." I returned to these lines again after reviewing Ron Rosenbaum's notes on the play. Therefore, we have yet more links to Marlowe and R&J.

In Professor Kenneth Gross' fine book, SHYLOCK IS SHAKESPEARE, he comments on Shylock's last lines: "Shylock abruptly leaves the court; the Christian world wants to know no more about him, but it is not likely he will go out of our minds...........The last act, with its moving evocation of cosmic music, and its touching game of rings, offers us a sense of time restored, of fortune made right, of a happiness, a 'life and living, 'that extend toward an unknown future." The "game of rings," as Professor Bate suggested, recalls the ring that Shylock's wife gave him(MV3.1.104). One may then argue that Shylock believed that Antonio had an adulterous relationship with Leah. One then might quote John Gross again: "I personally think it is absurd to suppose that there is a direct line of descent from Antonio to Hitler, or from Portia to the SS, but that is because I do not believe that the Holocaust was in any way inevitable." This last quote, I think, supports what we have seen here. That is, the author wrote the play to foster discussion.

This Professor Bate seems obsessed by Shylock's wife who never was a character in the play.

Happy New Year, stanley!

Happy New Year, Danik. And thanks so much for helping me stay on track. Professor Parrott suggested that Shakespeare himself had a kind of "sex obsession." This may in part be due to the fact that the top government office was held by Elizabeth I from 1548-1603. At any rate, Bate is not altogether fool: "Whether or not it is appropriate to invoke the idea of sexual transgression, Shakespeare often returned to a triangular structure of relationships in which close male friendship is placed at odds with desire for a woman. The pattern recurs not only in several of the plays but also as the implied narrative of the Sonnets."

You are welcome! Possibly this triangular pattern exited already in the old Greek plays.

I botched the numbers in #474. Elizabeth was queen in 1558, not 48.

Professor Dusinberre, in her introduction to AS YOU LIKE IT, wrote that "THE MERCHANT OF VENICE(1596-7) and MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING(1598-9) feature in Portia and Beatrice powerful women who, like Rosalind, suggest parallels with Elizabeth I, before whose court-as well as at the public theatre, most of the comedies would have been performed." Of the character Cleopatra Professor Bate wrote: "She is the consummate actress, able to change her mood on a whim, to keep all around her guessing as to whether she is in earnest or at play..........She is also the only woman in Shakespeare's tragedies to have a wit comparable to that of such comic heroines as Rosalind in AS YOU LIKE IT and Portia in THE MERCHANT OF VENICE............Cleopatra is a grown-up Juliet." To answer this thread's question one must compare one play to another.

A little book titled THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM was published in 1599. There, we are told, is a version of Sonnet 144. Professor Bate compares the poem to those of others: "Shakespeare introduces something more dramatic: a love triangle, a version of the morality-play scenario in which an 'everyman' character- or a restless spirit such as Marlowe's Dr. Faustus- has a good and bad angel hovering over him. The Petrarchan lady is traditionally an angel or goddess, whereas Shakespeare's female spirit is 'a woman coloured ill,' a 'female evil' who tempts the 'better angel,' 'a man right fair' into infidelity...........Shakespeare had explored the theme in his early comedy THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA and would return to it in his late plays THE WINTER'S TALE and THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN." In Professor Bevington's introduction to AS YOU LIKE IT we find: "[the play] contains several motifs found in other Shakespearean comedies: ..........the heroine disguised as a man(as in THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, THE TWO GENTLEMAN OF VERONA, CYMBELINE, and TWELFTH NIGHT).........." I have yet to read THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. Marchette Chute sums up the conclusion, however: "Proteus is instantly repentant of his bad behavior, and Valentine, his affection for his friend running away with him, makes a magnificent offer. 'All that was mine in Silvia I give thee.' At this Julia faints, and when she recovers she admits her identity. Proteus promptly reverses himself and decides he loves Julia after all, Valentine is at last fee to marry Silvia, and the duke of Milan suddenly appears and forgives everyone, even the outlaws." The clown in MV also has two characters hovering over him(MV2.2).

Harold Bloom asked us why Shakespeare has Antonio demand that Shylock convert. One answer is in the first speech in the play: "And such a want-wit sadness makes of me"(MV1.1.6). Antonio would like Shylock to help him understand the Old Testament. Another is suggested by editors. Bevington glossed Jessica's "I shall be saved by my husband. He hath made me a Christian"(MV3.5.17-18): "1 Corinthians 7:14 'The unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband.'" Therefore, Antonio believes that the soul of Shylock's wife will be sanctified by Shylock's conversion.

Dear Stanley. Are you sure Antonio thinks about Shylock´s deceased wife?