Is The Merchant of Venice anti-Semitic?

When Portia says "Tarry a little; there is something else"(MV4.1.304), Shylock may be standing face to face with Bassanio. That Shylock has a knife in his hand evoked the death of Marlowe. That Bassanio is a scholar and a soldier evoked the life and death of Sir Philip Sidney. The fact that no character in this play is killed makes the question of this thread quite difficult.

And in the last scene of R&J we have: "and if aught in this / Miscarried by my fault, let my old life / Be sacrificed some hour before his time / Unto the rigor of severest law"(R&J5.3.266-9). Shylock's "I stand here for law"(MV4.1.142) plainly echoes the Friar. As we have seen, Shylock's first line in the play, "Three thousand ducats, well"(MV1.3.1), plainly recalls Romeo's "Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight"(R&J5.1.34). "Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things"(R&J5.3.307), says the Prince. During the Nazi era in Germany, the lunatic government used Shakespeare as a terrorist tool. We read that goons were present in the audience to threaten anyone interested in obeying Shakespeare's Prince.

And as Professor Parrott wrote some eighty years ago for students, criticism is often written in response to other critics. Professor Bevington's remarks(see post #391), then, may be in reply to Isaac Asimov, Professor Bloom or his own Christian students whose first impression of the play may be that Shakespeare is rejecting Christianity. For example, Hawkman's remark here that Antonio would rather die than be poor is a thought that might be tempered by further study. And I'm responding in part to John Gross' fine book about the play. Professor Kenneth Gross was responding in part to John Gross and Philip Roth.

Professor Barnet begins his notes about the stage history of the play by quoting a comment on Charles Macklin's nineteenth century performance: "This is the Jew that Shakespeare drew." He goes on to add "exactly what does one mean when one says that a certain portrayal renders the figure 'that Shakespeare drew?'.........One school of scholarship protests that we will get the most out of the play if we try to see it in its Elizabethan context, but to argue that 'the Elizabethans' thought thus-and-so about Jews is scarcely convincing, for although Shakespeare certainly was an Elizabethan, he certainly was not a typical Elizabethan..........Moreover, the Shakespeare that interests us is the playwright." Barnet also quotes Shylock's "eyes speech"(as Hawkman calls it here) exactly where Marchette Chute did, "I am a Jew," but he leaves it to us to note that the Elizabethan context is such that the phrase rhymes with Juliet's "What's Montague?" from Shakespeare's ROMEO AND JULIET. Answering the question of this thread is a team effort.

Dang! Charles Macklin performed the part of Shylock for nearly half of the eighteenth century, not nineteenth. Portia's "How all the other passions fleet to air"(MV3.2.110) speech can be overlooked as it is found between two lengthy speeches from Bassanio. It does contain, however, a list of passions where we find "green-eyed jealousy." One may then argue that "green-eyed jealousy" is an important motive among others that drive Shylock's "losing suit"(MV4.1.63).

I still have to look up Portia's speech "How all the other passions fleet to air"( I didn't understand why it has to be ignored only because Bassanio's speeches are longer.

Sorry about a lack of clarity in #500. I meant to note that the speech has not been noted prior to the other day here. Jealousy is also a subject in the scene just before the court scene: "I shall grow jealous of you shortly, Launcelot, if you thus get my wife into corners"(MV3.5.29-30). "Rash-embraced despair"(MV3.2.109), I should think, might recall the first conversation in the play. One might suggest that Portia's "How all the other passions" speech brings together such things as Hawkman and Charles D.'s disagreement in posts #50-53 here. It is reasonable to suggest that one passion motivating Shylock is jealousy. This is suggested in a speech from Launcelot earlier: "Adieu! Tears exhibit my tongue. Most beautiful pagan, most sweet Jew! If a Christian do not play the knave and get thee, I am much deceived"(MV2.3.10-12). Some editors,as we have seen, substitute "did" for "do."

Interesting, Stanley. Launcelot seems to like Jessica indeed. But in the case of Shylock I would rather suggest envy ( of the greater freedom of the Christians) than jealousy.

Well done Danik! One might recall Professor Leggatt's comment for the Folger edition, that various comments are "allowed" by the text. The author's use of the word "or" also comes to mind: "What said my man when my betossed soul / Did not attend him as we rode? I think / He told me Paris should have married Juliet. / Said he not so? Or did I dream it so? / Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet / To think it was so?"(ROMEO AND JULIET5.3.76-81). Eminent scholar J. Dover Wilson wrote that MV was written near the time of R&J and that it is interesting to compare the two.

Portia's "How all the other passions"(MV3.2.110) speech is found right after Bassanio makes his choice. Portia is quite relieved, one might say. We then have the question of whether the casket test was a good idea. In the first two scenes of the play we learn that Portia and Bassanio are fond of one another. Was Portia's father, then, like Egeus in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM and Shylock in MV lacking in enthusiasm? Yet another difficult question I think. That the phrase "green-eyed jealousy" follows hard on Bassanio's choice, I think, strongly suggests that this passion is the most important one regarding Shylock's motivation.

The last four of the seven lines in Portia's response to Bassanio's choice(3.2) follow: " O love, be moderate, allay thy ecstasy, / In measure rain thy joy, scant this excess! / I feel too much thy blessing. Make it less, / For fear I surfeit"(MV3.2.114-117). We find an echo in the first lines of TWELFTH NIGHT: "If music be the food of love, play on! / Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, / The appetite may sicken, and so die." Most editors include the word "aside" in brackets before Portia's speech, which begins with the word "How." These last two points are the same as in Shylock's "How like a fawning publican"
speech(MV1.3.41-52).

For the series SHAKESPEARE IN PRODUCTION, Professor Edelman wrote of Portia's "How all the other passions speech:" "Deborah Findley[who played Portia in 1987] remembers this speech as 'a wonderful moment when time stands still, a moment of sheer joy quietly expressed before the great cheer from the household on..........'fair Portia's counterfeit.'" Little wonder, then, that scholars tend to pass over the "fluff of the love story" as Hawkman put it here. They focus more on such plays as TROILUS AND CRESSIDA following such comments for students on TROILUS as Parrott's "All in all a strange and mystifying play." It's their job to try to demystify stuff.

Professor Parrott's textbook for students was written in the 1930's. There we find: "yet there are at least four fully realized characters, life-like enough for actors to differ in their impersonations and critics in their comments from Shakespeare's day to ours." To Hawkman's list(Shylock, Portia and Antonio) here we must add Bassanio to make Parrott's four.

I agree with you and Hawkman´s three first characters. As for Bassanio, I think that he is much more standard and less realized than the other three.

I think Marchette Chute would subtract Antonio from the list too. The last essay in the 2002 anthology put together by the Mahons is about the history of Portia onstage. There we find a quote from a 1953 review: "Most Portias are content to turn the tables on Shylock with the triumphantly detached air of a schoolmistress telling the bad boy of his class that he is not going to get away with his nonsense this time. Miss Ashcroft is much too indignant for this to content her. She hurries across and interposes herself, bodily, arms outstretched, between the Jew's knife and the Merchant's breast." I'm not sure but perhaps the idea that Bassanio is already between Shylock and Antonio at that juncture came about after reading that note. It's as if the actress is showing the actor playing Bassanio how to play the part.