Is The Merchant of Venice anti-Semitic?

When we learn that Nerissa, dressed like a Lawyer's Clerk, has arrived at the court, Bassanio says: "Good cheer, Antonio! What, man, courage yet! / The Jew shall have my flesh, blood, bones, and all / Ere thou shall lose for me one drop of blood"(MV4.1.111-113). Therefore, it is reasonable to think that when Portia says "Tarry a little; there is something else"(4.1.303), Bassanio is standing between Shylock and Antonio. Thus it is clear that the author has in mind the death of Marlowe and the life and death of Sir Phillip Sidney.

And the conclusion of The Odyssey is plainly on Shakespeare's mind as well(see Fitzgerald's translation). In the first scene we have Salerio's "Your mind is tossing on the ocean, / There where your argosies with portly sail"(MV1.1.8-9). I think it is clear that the author links other characters with Odysseus too.

The late professor Harold Bloom wrote that the play is endlessly ironic. Perhaps, then, Professor Parrott, writing in the 1930's was right after all by suggesting that Antonio's sadness is due simply to Bassanio's impending marriage. Antonio would rather the two of them hike the Appalachian Trail. Portia's "Fie, what a question's that; / If thou wert near a lewd interpreter"(MV3.4.79-80), is then Shakespeare's reply to both Danik's and my own comments regarding the matter. On the other hand, perhaps John Gross was responding to both Harold Bloom and E.E. Stoll and Bloom's "ironic" comment was his reply to Gross: "Personally, I 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." I don't have Gross' work in front of me, but I think I'm in the ballpark.

My2cents, back on page 2, wrote: There's an element of scapegoating(Antonio vis-a-vis Shylock) which legitimizes the antisemitism claim, but that would be grossly simplifying Shakespeare's complex art." Again, I've found it helpful to note the line from KING LEAR, "This is not altogether fool, my lord"(LEAR,1.4.148).

Answer to# 513
I didn't read Gross and I don't remember anything about an Appalachian Trail. But the confusion about the rings and other signs show Portia and Antônio clearly competing for the love of Bassanio. The whole stratagem of the rings serves for Portia to ascertain her claim simultaneously as Bassanio's wife and the lawyer who freed Antônio from his deadly sentence.

"And that's true too"(KING LEAR5.2.12).

Writer Bill Bryson wrote A WALK IN THE WOODS, a book about the Appalachian Trail. He was asked to write a short book about Shakespeare and it is a fine one. Shakespeare's first great success, I think, was the narrative poem VENUS AND ADONIS, published in 1593, the year of Marlowe's death. Therefore, it is reasonable to suggest that Antonio might want company on his next hunting trip to avoid the fate that Marlowe and Adonis each suffered.

And in TWELFTH NIGHT, the sea-captain Antonio has rescued Sebastian, Viola's twin brother at sea. And again the character named Antonio may be homosexual. It is interesting to compare the final scene in the later comedy to MV. For example, Olivia asks: "Who has done this, Sir Andrew?" Sir Andrew responds: "The count's gentleman, one Cesario; we took him for a coward, but he's the very devil incardinate"(TN5.1.172-4). Andrew was the name of a famous ship mentioned in MV and the clown in MV presents another odd spelling conundrum, "incarnation"(MV2.2.23).

Or to follow through, the clown Lancelet says: " Certainly the Jew is the very devil incarnation"(MV2.2.26).

And in his introduction to TN, Professor Parrott wrote: "Sir Andrew, is surely the most perfect and complete picture of a fool that Shakespeare ever drew." Marchette Chute wrote of the same character: ""a limp and well-intentioned knight who knows he is a fool but keeps hoping in a vague way that perhaps he isn't." It is Olivia who prompts Sir Andrew's comment(post #518) and it is she who marries the "very devil incardinate," Sebastian. At least I think that's what happens. I'll have to check again.

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."