I recently read The Merchant of Venice and enjoyed it immensely. However, I was surprised by how anti-Semitic it was. It depicted Shylock, as a typical, greedy, miserly Jew who loves nothing but money. I understand that the point of this story was probably not to be anti-Semitic but instead talk about greed and human beings in general but I wondered what other people thought about this.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear - From Frank Herbert's Dune Book Series
'The Merchant of Venice' is VERY anti-Semitic, which is why it's so infrequently performed today. However, you have to remember the time--people were terribly biased against Jews and completely ignorant of Jewish culture. This was not only because of the religious differences between Christianity and Judaism, but also because many of them were bankers and money lenders, an unpopular and 'sinful' profession, and because, well, everyone loves picking on a minority. This does not in any way excuse the anti-Semitism of the age, but it does put it in context.
And then, for the plot of 'Merchant of Venice,' you need a money lender. Preferably a greedy, cruel and vindictive money lender, but the job is the starting point. At that time, Christianity taught against charging interest, so the money lending jobs were pushed off on the Jews.
Finally, as you say, the point of the play is about greed and human nature, not Jews specifically. It's just unfortunate that the scapegoat is, as so many were, a villainized Jewish man.
Thats pretty much what I thought.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear - From Frank Herbert's Dune Book Series
I haven't read the play, but I did watch the recent Al Pacino movie of it. I didn't find it anti-semetic at all. It might have been the acting though.
Sure, it showed Jews as moneylenders, which is historically accurate. Why though were Jews moneylenders? Because they were not allowed to own property. They were oppressed. The play shows this.
Shylock's rage wasn't painted as being a typical Jew problem, but rather as being driven by revenge, which is an everyman problem.
Overall the film is a tragedy of racism that was meant to teach a lesson.
I find it no more anti-semetic than Schindler's List.
Examine the meaning of the word “Sonties”[The merchant of Venice]
W.Turner in his Notes section makes some wild suggestions like “we find in another Elizabethan, “God’s Santy” [here the young researchers must notice that with a subtle dexterity Turner had replaced letter “o” of the Shakespeare’s text with letter “a” ] i.e. God’s health, perhaps it was customary to swear by the health of the deity. Or it may mean “by the saints”. Then this will amount to that if some human being like me who is of evil repute of being the worst liar of India swears by the health of god and lies, the god would be prone to suffer some terminal disease like AIDS or Cancer and eventually be destined to die? I don’t know whether Christians of this era or the ones of the Elizabethan era are or were to be, or to have been in the habit of praying for the health of the god, but according to our Hindu Scriptures we consider the god to be almighty and seek his blessings to grant us good health rather than be assuming his health to be at our hands. Since almost all of the world religions consider the god to be the immortal would it be necessary or logical for some human beings to discuss his health aspect?
Roma Gill, leaves alone the gods but stays with the saints of W.Turner. She observes that Sonties are saints and the old Gobbo is identified by her to have been speaking a country dialect. These two have made the Shakespearean literature very amusing to read, surpassing the amusement provided by the Laurel and Hardy to the silver screen by reducing his conveyance to a Peter Seller comedy.
To understand this mysterious word the young researchers may have to take a look at my argument while bringing out the meaning of the word “Windring” in my translation of The Tempest which Roma Gill had mischievously changed to wandering. Here in the same way I wish you bisect this word with a hyphen as “Son-Ties”. Now going by the Para 167 of the Roget’s I advise you to pick up the meaning option “Family” for the word “son”.
Now going by the meaning options listed under Para 43 of the Roget’s I suggest you to pick up the meaning option “Attachments” for the word “Ties”. Keeping in view that Gobbo is engaged in a frantic search of his son the meaning “Family attachments” logically fits into this context.
However you be the better judge.
Lament”400 years have already gone when will this intellectual eclipse end Shakespeare’s intellect be revealed in it’s true perspective???
Examine the meaning of the words Death’s- head[The Merchant of Venice]
According to W Turner “the emblem of a skull with two bones crossed underneath was known as a death’s head. It was often carved on tomb stones as an emblem of man’s mortality………..”
For Roma Gill of the Oxford University Press the death’s head is just a skull. .
Refer Roget’s Para 837 the meaning of the word Death’s-head should be “depression”.
However you be the better judge
Lament”400 years have already gone when will this intellectual eclipse end Shakespeare’s intellect be revealed in it’s true perspective???
Examine the meaning of the word “Jaundice”[The merchant of Venice]
In this context W.Turner is of the opinion that “gradually work himself into a jaundiced or liverish state”
According to Roma Gill of Oxford University press “the disease that turns the skin yellow. It was thought by the Elizabethans to be associated with jealous or bad temper[peevishness]
.Refer Roget’s Para 837. I suggest you to opt for the meaning option “depression” for the meanings listed under this Para for the word “Jaundice”.
However you be the better judge.
Lament”400 years have already gone when will this intellectual eclipse end Shakespeare’s intellect be revealed in it’s true perspective???
Examine the translation of the words “sleep when he wakes”[The merchant of Venice]
W.Turner translates the words as “be sleepy in waking hours”.
For Roma Gill “be still and silent during the day as if he were asleep.”
Refer Roget’s Para 683. I suggest you to opt for the meaning option “inactivity” for the word sleep.
.Refer Roget’s Para 65. I suggest you to opt for the meaning option “continue” for the word wake.
If you select such logically sound meaning options you would be translating authentically as “If one continues to stay inactive would gradually slip into a mental depression”. Generally a man who does not keep himself occupied had been seen to get his mind crowded with pessimistic thoughts and the brooding which would eventually make him slip into a mental depression. This is clearly stated by Shakespeare in Julius Caesar. We find Brutus frantically searching for a book to read, secondly calls for the company of people like Claudius and verro and thirdly asks Lucius to play some music at an odd time of a night. All these frantic efforts were for diversion so that he would not brood about the loss of his dear wife and ultimately slip into a dreadful depression.
However you be a better judge.
Lament”400 years have already gone when will this intellectual eclipse end Shakespeare’s intellect be revealed in it’s true perspective???
Examine the meaning of the word “Table”[The merchant of Venice]
Let us examine the averments of W.Turner which run as “Table is a technical term in palmistry, meaning the palm of the hand on which the lines are read. It is enough to remember that Shakespeare depicts Launcelot as overjoyed by his good luck, and makes him speak in a confused and excited manner”
for Roma Gill of the Oxford University the palm is a table and Launcelot pretends to be a palmist, telling his fortune, by looking at his hand.
W.Turner appears to be talking about the tables of the nature of Time Tables or Scientific Tables etc. There are tables used by fortune-tellers but these tables are used by the astrologers. They are usually in the form of various squares which they call rooms and tell you that the sun is in the 9th room while the jupitor is engaged in ringing the calling bell of the 5th room and eventually will enter into it soon in which case your wife would elope away with some dark complexioned neighbor so immediately without any delay you must rush and take a jump into the Hussain Sagar lake in Hyderabad or face the disgrace.
go around and ask a dozen palmists available in your vicinity and ask them whether they use tables like the astrologers? A palmist would take a good magnifying glass and take a very serious peer at your palm, with the brow knitted, and having primed up your curiosity would tell you that the secret and adulterous affair you are having with your neighbor’s daughter-in-law will come to her husbands knowledge, soon as this crawly line touches this horizontal line on this area under this index finger called the mount of jupitor which may happen any time during this week. Therefore I advice you to run away from Hyderabad to some far off place or face a death at the hands of her husband. [Pardon me I was just joking with you to keep you amused, since you got used to such amusing words of Roma Gill like misadventures of the men at sea and how they end up in syphilis wards eventually while reading the Tempest.]
In my opinion this word “Table” must be taken with an implied appendage as the “Table of the Lord” and select a meaning option “Place of Worship” listed under the Para 1000 of the Roget’s.
However you be the better judge.
Lament”400 years have already gone when will this intellectual eclipse end Shakespeare’s intellect be revealed in it’s true perspective???
Examine the earlier meanings and comments upon the word “It were….cerecloth”.the meaning of the word” Rib”[the merchant of Venice]
According to W Turner “Rib to enclose. The cerecloth was waxed cloth, used to enclose a body in the coffin. Morocco says that lead would never be good enough for her wrapping when in the dark grave; much less worthy than to enclose her picture while she is alive”.
For Roma Gill “lead would be too crude to enfold [rib] the winding sheet when she is buried”.
Here I suggest you to opt for the meaning option “Shoe” from the options listed under the Para 215 of the Roget’s for the word “Rib”. In other words Morocco is discarding the lead box calling it unfit even to keep the shoes of Portia so finding her picture in it would be ridiculous and impossible. As we Hyderabad’s people say “uske jhootha rakhneka be kabil nahin hai”.
However you be the better judge
Lament”400 years have already gone when will this intellectual eclipse end Shakespeare’s intellect be revealed in it’s true perspective???
. Examine the dialogue of Trinculo from lines 15 to 40[The Tempest]
In this dialogue Shakespeare uses words “dead Indian” referring to the character Caliban who is described in detail in the lines 280 to 284 of Act II Scene I. Caliban is described as “a deformed son of a witch”. I thank god for W.Turner had spared the Indians of south East Asia otherwise I would have taken this with disgust for having my ancestors to be referred to as the deformed sons of a witch. While W.Turner restricts this derogative reference to North Americans, over enthusiastic Roma Gill takes the South Americans also into this fold by using the words “new world” Refer under meaning no.5 at page 1242 of the Oxford Dictionary edited by JB Sykes the meaning of the word new world is America while the old world is Europe. I am thankful because now the dispute would be between the Europeans and the Americans with my Indians luckily spared.
In my opinion Shakespeare is a gentleman and I don’t expect him to be passing such disgraceful reference. It is the mischief of the careless translators. Here, as it appears to me, Shakespeare is making a reference to “Indian rubber”. Rubber is a very effective figurative to explain a deformity. Take a rubber toy and try, you can bend its limbs any way you like it. Almost four centuries have gone by and when will this world be successful in doing justice to this great soul by properly translating his works?
But you be the better judge.
Lament”400 years have already gone when will this intellectual eclipse end Shakespeare’s intellect be revealed in it’s true perspective???
Many people get this wrong about the play.
Though it shows a very anti-semitic view throughout a lot of the play, this is because of the audience it was aimed at. The Victorian's were anti-semitic and would have enjoyed seeing a play with a Jew that they could hate in, so to make any money out of the play it would have to be anti-semitic. It's important to remember that at the time he was writing, Shakespeare was not the hugely reveared and praised play-write of today, yes, he was thought highly of, but he still had to write plays people would want to see.
Also, though the play may seem anti-semitic, if you look closely, it is not as bad as it first seems. Though it does portray the horrible, cruel Jew, it is because the Christians are so disgusting in their behaviour towards him.
The Christians in the play are foul, 'dog Jew', and they spit upon him, though it is not justified in what Shylock wishes to do, the reasons behind his behaviour are there. It does show how horribly behaved the Christians can be in their hypocritical treatment of others.
As said above as well, Christians could not be money lenders, so it had to be a Jew in the main role.
Every character in the play is quite horrible at some point or another, however, i doubt that from reading it through without analyzing it, you would pick up on as much of this.
It is anti-semitic, but it is only becuase of the time it was written in, and in a way it is really anti-christian as well, and does not portray any race in it as good at all.
the funny thing guys.. about this all matter...is that living in Venice I was there when they shot the film Merchant of Venice... I can post some pict next time..
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote