Is The Merchant of Venice anti-Semitic?

So we have yet another puzzle. Why did Shakespeare echo the clown Lancelot(see post #519) in the last scene of TN? As we have seen, we find in the first scene of AS YOU LIKE IT that the author combines part of the first line in MV with a disturbing line from Shylock.

Professor Parrott may have intended to recall the much noted speech in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM: "Methought I was---and methought I had---but man is but a patched fool if he will offer to say what methought I had"(MND4.1.209-10). Bate and Rasmussen gloss "patched" to mean "i.e. wearing a fool's multicolored costume." Early in in TN, Sir Toby says to Sir Andrew: "Pourquoi, my dear knight?(TN1.3.82). "What is pourquoi?" is his reply. This might recall Juliet's "What's Montague?"(R&J2.2.39) and Flute's "What is Thisbe? A wand'ring knight?(MND1.2.38). And one might return to Lorenzo's "O dear discretion, how his words are suited! The fool hath planted in his memory / An army of good words; and I do know / A many fools, that stand in better place, / Garnished like him, that for a tricksy word / Defy the matter"(MV3.5.62-7).

One might note Sebastian's "If thou dar'st tempt me further, draw thy sword"(TN4.1.43). Doing so might recall Romeo's "Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man"(R&J5.3.59). In TN, it seems that Feste, the professional fool, has alerted Olivia who arrives to break up the fight.

In Act four, scene 2 of TWELFTH NIGHT, the professional fool is giving Malvolio a hard time: "Madman, thou errest: I say, there is no darkness but ignorance, in which thou art more puzzled than the Egyptians in their fog"(TN4.2.40-3). Editors gloss this last part: "darkness cast over Egypt by Moses, Cf EXODUS 10:21." The author may also have in mind the first paragraph of the GOSPEL OF JOHN and the prologue of Marlowe's the JEW OF MALTA: "I count religion but a childish toy / And hold there is no sin but ignorance," noted by Professor Bate. More certain is the echo of R&J above (post #523). It is helpful to note that the early play ends tragically and the later play ends happily. One might recall again Portia's "Tarry a little, there is something else"(MV4.1.313). And all these Biblical allusions make it difficult to argue that the author is rejecting any religion.

We should thank Professor David Nicol who wrote the comments for the CliffsComplete edition published in 2000. He concludes his notes on the court scene as follows: "Although Antonio is saved and Shylock has been punished, a new cloud has arisen: An awkward conflict between the two loves of Bassanio's life." Whether he had in mind Sonnet 144 and it's "Two loves" or not, Portia's "I never did repent for doing good.........Which makes me think that this Antonio, / Being the bosom lover of lord / Must needs be like my lord"(MV3.4), suggests that Antonio may also have "two loves."

We also find in TWELFTH NIGHT: "Antonio, O my dear Antonio! / How have the hours racked and tortured me / Since I have lost thee!"(TN5.1.214-216). One might wonder if the printer played the comedian here. At any rate, the author still has MV in mind 3 or 4 years later when writing TN.

And another Antonio is apostropheid.

"You have too courtly a wit for me, I'll rest"(AS YOU LIKE IT3.2.67).

And therefore, given that Antonio and Orsino each begin their respective plays, each has the same difficulty. That is, "the perplexities of love," as Professor Bate suggested. This quotation is a much noted comment from a contemporary of Shakespeare.

And therefore Shylock's "The patch is kind enough, but a huge feeder, / Snail slow in profit, and he sleeps by day / More than the wildcat"(MV2.45-47), links Shylock with Nick Bottom in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM(see post #522).

Another contestant for the title most perfect and complete fool in a Shaxberd text is Romeo's man Balthazar. He's the one who must hear Romeo say "The time and my intents are savage-wild, / More fierce and more inexorable far / Than empty tigers or the roaring sea"(ROM5.3.37-9). Perhaps because Balthazar is one of a very few parts in Shakespeare that I can imagine myself playing onstage, I noticed Antonio's lines "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"(MV4.1.71-3).

And one might note that Balthazar, or Balthasar, is the name of a servant of Portia and the young Doctor of Rome(MV4.1.153). On the cover of the Annotated Shakespeare edition we read that "on-page annotations give readers all the tools they need to comprehend the play and begin to explore its many possible interpretations."

Professor Raffel, for his 2006 introduction, quoted John Gross: "Nothing can alter the fact that, seen through the eyes of the other characters, Shylock is a deeply threatening figure, and the threat he poses is of a peculiarly primitive kind." His point is, in part, that as Charles D. and Hawkman pointed out here in this thread, that folklore is an important matter in the play. Also important is Scripture. In ancient Scripture, adultery is a serious crime and was a serious matter regarding the life and death of Queen Elizabeth's mother. In the scene right before the Court scene, Lorenzo says "I shall grow jealous of you shortly, Lancelet, if you thus get my wife into corners"(MV3.5.22-3). "Green-eyed jealousy"(MV3.2.112) may then be a passion driving Shylock.

Professor Kenneth Gross also noted Philip Roth's 1993 novel where a character quotes part of Shylock's first line. "[The character's] diatribe is something of a blind, however, being intended mainly to draw the narrator(Roth himself) into a secret plot." Therefore, one might argue that the character botches the quote(see post #471 here) because he has something else on his mind. And Danik seems to agree with Marchette Chute's 1956 comment on MV: "the fascination of his two chief characters is so strong that no audience can resist them. They are Portia the heiress and Shylock the moneylender, and between them they create an extraordinary play."

Another question is whether the author had in mind translations of DEUTERONOMY 6.4 when he wrote the monologue in Act 2, scene 2: "The fiend is at mine elbow, and tempts me, saying to me, 'Iobbe, Lancelot Iobbe, good Lancelot,' or 'good Iobbe,' or 'good Lancelot Iobbe, use your legs, take the start, run away.' My conscience says, 'No, take heed honest Lancelot, take heed honest Iobbe,' or as aforesaid 'honest Lancelot Iobbe, do not run, scorn running with thy heels'"(MV2.2.2-7). While Professor Drakakis preferred "Giobbe," and tells us that the word is the Italianate form of Job, John Andrews wrote: "It is not clear whether the Quarto spelling is meant to differentiate Iobbe from Gobbo(line 35) or to suggest an equivalence. 'I' appears where modern 'J' occurs in words like Justice and Jew." We read that the Scriptural passage is important in Judaism.

And thus as Charles D. suggested(see post #117), the above Biblical allusion is of a piece with much else in the play. Antonio's sadness, Shylock's motives, Portia's courtroom strategy and so forth are all matters for further discussion and as Professor Leggatt noted, various comments are "allowed" by the play.