Day 31: The Merchant of Venice--Some Facts

The Merchant of Venice

Full Title: The Comical History of the Merchant of Venice, or Otherwise Called the Jew of Venice

Category: Comedy (but a tragic comedy)

Date Written: 1598

Most Famous Lines: The "Hath not a Jew eyes" speech by Shylock:

Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs,dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed withthe same food, hurt with the same weapons, subjectto the same diseases, heal'd by the same means,warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summeras a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us,do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility?Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should hissufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge.The villainy you teach me, I will execute,and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.(Act III, scene I)

Title Character: Antonio, a merchant in Venice

Villain: Shylock, a rich Jew and money lender who demands from Antonio "a pound of flesh." Since the mid 19th century, Shylock has typically been portrayed sympathetically but prior to that he was almost always portrayed as a cartoonish villain, a reflection of the anti-Semitism of Elizabethan England. Though some would argue that the complexity Shakespeare gives to the character of Shylock is in contrast to the "judeophobia" of his society, in that he explains that the character's evil choices are a reaction to being ostracized by Christian society.