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    The Merchant of Venice
    The Merchant of Venice
    The Merchant of Venice
    Audiobook2 hours

    The Merchant of Venice

    Written by William Shakespeare

    Narrated by Antony Sher, Roger Allam and Emma Fielding

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    About this audiobook

    Shylock, a Jewish moneylender, agrees to lend Antonio, a Venetian merchant, three thousand ducats so that his friend Bassanio can afford to court his love, Portia. However, Shylock has one condition: should the loan go unpaid, he will be entitled to a pound of Antonio’s own flesh. Meanwhile in Belmont, according to the terms of her father’s will, Portia’s many suitors must choose correctly from three caskets. Bassanio arrives at Portia’s estate and they declare their love for one another before he picks the correct casket. Antonio falls into bad fortune and finds he cannot repay Shylock: a dramatic trial ensues to decide his fate.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaxos Audiobooks
    Release dateAug 1, 2008
    ISBN9789629547646
    Author

    William Shakespeare

    William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest playwright the world has seen. He produced an astonishing amount of work; 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and 5 poems. He died on 23rd April 1616, aged 52, and was buried in the Holy Trinity Church, Stratford.

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    Reviews for The Merchant of Venice

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      Great, friendly edition that attempts to grapple with the numerous issues this play presents.
    • 5/5
      I am apparently the only person on the planet who does not believe that Merchant of Venice is anti-Semitic. Shylock is a man living in a world where law and custom consider him as less than human and he is filled with anger. His cruelty is his tiny way of lashing out. He wants revenge, and he prizes that above money. Is his intended (though thwarted) violence horrifying and shocking? Sure it is. It is the twisted malignant violence that grows in the heart of a man caged and stunted, of a man forced to be inhuman. When you prick him, he doth bleed. And the true evildoers in this tale are not Jews. Shylock is the victim. (Jessica is a whole separate story.) This is the story of a man stripped of manhood, a man whose essence is ground to dust under the boot heels of people who call themselves Christians. That Shakespeare, he knows a tragedy when he sees one.
    • 5/5
      I liked their voices and how clearly they read merchant of Venice
    • 4/5
      When the merchant Antonio is approached by his friend, Bassanio, for a loan, he doesn't have money in hand to loan. He's expecting a large profit upon the arrival of ships from various centers of trade, so he borrows the money from Jewish lender Shylock. If Antonio can't repay the loan by the due date, instead of interest, Shylock will take a pound of flesh from Antonio. Meanwhile, Bassanio is off to court Portia. Bassanio is lucky in love, but Antonio is very unlucky in business. All of his ships are lost, and Shylock is demanding his pound of flesh. Bassanio is distraught at having put his friend Antonio in this position. Fortunately, Portia has a plan...This is more like two different plays instead of a unified drama. Portia and her suitors begin as a separate story line, finally connected to the main plot through Bassanio's arrival. I think Polonius delivered his famous monologue to the wrong character in the wrong play. Antonio, Bassanio, and Shylock could all have benefited from his advice to “neither a borrower or a lender be”!
    • 4/5
      The Merchant of Venice is an excellent play full of moral questions, religious arguments, and financial downfall. Antonio, the main character of the play is a lonely merchant who has all his investments out at sea. Antonio wants to be part of the “in crowd” and desires to have his youth again so he has become best friends with a young noble named Bassanio. Bassanio spends his money very freely and has to constantly borrow from Antonio. When Bassanio finds the love of his life he comes to Antonio once again to borrow money to win Portia’s love. The only problem is all Antonio’s investments are lost at the moment so they borrow from the Jew Shylock. From here the play goes into a suspenseful drama between religious feuds, to love, to life or death situations.Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice is chalked full of dramatic scenes, from Shylock fighting for his rights as a human, “I am a Jew: hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is?...” (Act III, scene I), to Antonio almost getting a pound of flesh shaved off of his body for Bassanio, “ Why, this bond is forfeit; And lawfully by this the Jew may claim a pound of flesh, to be by him cut off nearest the merchants heart… Why then, thus it is: You must prepare your bosom for his knife” (Act IV, Scene I).The Merchant of Venice will keep you on the edge of your seat the whole way through. I recommend that everyone see this play at least once. The Merchant of Venice gets a rating of four stars from me and two thumbs up.
    • 4/5
      The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare is centered around a Christian named Antonio. At the beginning of the drama, Antonio is depressed due to an unknown cause; he says, “I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage, where every man must play a part, And mine a sad one” (Act I, Scene I). Later we learn that Bassanio, a young nobleman-Antonio’s dear friend, desires to pursue an unmarried women. To do so, Bassanio has to travel to Belmont and needs to borrow money from his wealthy friend Antonio. Of course, Antonio also desires for Bassanio to pursue this fair lady, so he borrows money from a Jew since all his own wealth is at sea. Shylock, the Jew, agrees to lend Antonio the needed amount of money if he will agree to the bond; Shylock says, “If you repay me not on such a day, In such a place, such sum, or sums, as are Express‘d in the condition, let the forfeit Be nominated for an equal pound Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken In what part of your body pleaseth me” (Act I, Scene III). Eventually, Bassanio marries Portia, the fair lady, and she dresses as a young judge to save Antonio from the bond with Shylock. This drama is filled with romance, tragedy, and comedy: Portia marries Bassanio, Antonio almost gets his life taken from him, and Portia and her servant Nerissa dress as men and trick their husbands into getting the rings they gave them. The Merchant of Venice keeps my interest every time I turn a page. I enjoyed that the plot flowed smoothly and didn’t creep along too slowly. This was a good play. It deserves four stars! I recommend that everyone should explore at least one of Shakespeare’s works; the Merchant of Venice is one of his great works. Anybody that enjoys an interesting story line should read this drama. Even though it was difficult to follow at times due to Shakespeare’s dialogue, everybody should give The Merchant of Venice a try.
    • 3/5
      1596-7, zeer populair en controversieel; zeer nauwe structuur, Shylock is eerste rijpe figuurVeel proza, moeilijk leesbaar, vrij saai tot de figuur van Shylock ten tonele verschijnt (problematiek van het joodzijn, en van de woeker).Bekend: III,1 (p215): “Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as 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?”Toch dubbelzinnig: zit vooral in met zijn verloren geld en juwelen, boven zijn dochter Jessica.Finale vanaf IV, thema van recht en rechtvaardigheid.
    • 3/5
      1596-7, zeer populair en controversieel; zeer nauwe structuur, Shylock is eerste rijpe figuurVeel proza, moeilijk leesbaar, vrij saai tot de figuur van Shylock ten tonele verschijnt (problematiek van het joodzijn, en van de woeker).Bekend: III,1 (p215): ?Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as 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??Toch dubbelzinnig: zit vooral in met zijn verloren geld en juwelen, boven zijn dochter Jessica.Finale vanaf IV, thema van recht en rechtvaardigheid.
    • 3/5
      I just can't hang with anti-Semitism. Shakespeare is as brilliant as ever, but this was too much for me.
    • 1/5
      If I could have given it less than one star, I would have. Perhaps I'm naive and perhaps I missed the point, but the blatant antisemitism in this piece made me want to fling the book bodily across the room. I understand that the characters within the play may typify certain elements, but as a whole, this was the most antisemitic, racist play I have ever read. Is there redeeming quality in looking at it through the lenses of what Shakespeare intended versus how his audience perceived it? I don't know, but the excerpts of Mein Kampf I read were less enraging than this.
    • 3/5
      This is not my favorite Shakespeare play - at times, its great, but generally, not I found a bit weird, even when accounting for when the play was written in the late 1500's.I think my biggest issue is how Shylock is treated - Shakepeare gives him this great monologue about how he is human and worth respect, but than at the end, Shylock is forced to convert to Christianity. So, why give Shylock this great speech. As for the rest of the story, its a fairly standard Shakespeare - Cross Dressing, Money problems, innocent maids needing to be saved, etc etc.
    • 4/5
      It has a lot of similarities to "The Comedy of Errors," but its genre is more a mix of comedy, drama, and romance, than a plain comedy. There were several relationships to keep track of. Overall, I found the dilemma of contracts and Shylock's character interesting, but the play felt less satisfying than its companion.
    • 5/5
      I think Shylock is one of Shakespeare's most powerful characters, even though the plot of this play is unusually cracked-out, even for the Bard.
    • 2/5
      I don't really get this one. If Shylock is supposed to be the sympathetic character his vindictiveness towards Antonio isn't given enough support to be understandable. If Portia is then it's racist garbage. Either way I have to say I'm not feeling it. The ring subplot is cute I guess.
    • 5/5
      Waffling between four and five stars for this. Four and a half, we'll say. The speeches, the characters, the ideas... so much that was beautiful and thought-provoking. I'm afraid that what I'm having a hard time loving is any of the characters. They are too... real. Their flaws are too visible and ugly, and their modest virtues fail to compensate. The character who inspires the most compassion, Shylock, is also the one who is most ruthlessly cruel, and Portia, the character who is presented as most clear-thinking, pure, and righteous, is also merciless, petty, and vindictive. The juxtaposition of comic and tragic elements, as when Shylock cries in anguish, “Out upon her! Thou torturest me,Tubal. Itwas my turquoise. I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor.I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.”along with the mixture of cruelty and kindness in several characters, makes this, in a way, an exceptionally “realistic” comedy. It ends with weddings, but also with the fall of a larger-than-life character who is too sympathetic to be a proper villain. I read the Oxford World's Classics edition of this, which has fine notes, generous margins, readable font, and excellent introductory material. Which I only skimmed because, as always, I started with Marjorie Garber's wonderful chapter on the play in Shakespeare After All. All her analyses are good, but this one seemed to me particularly so. I know I wouldn't have enjoyed the play nearly so much without her insights, anyway. Also, I highly recommend the Arkangel recorded performance of this – it's just fantastic! I'm not a fan of Shakespeare's clowns, as a general rule, but David Tennant's “Lancelot” is irresistible, and the other actors are also marvelous.
    • 4/5
      I first read this play back in 9th grade. At the time I remember being struck w/certain parts of it though I missed a lot of references, and many somewhat bawdy double entendres went over my head. Re-reading it as an adult was a great idea, as I was able to appreciate the story more. And I found too, after awhile, that understanding Shakespeare's English became easier as I continued reading.

      One of my favorite passages was Portia's speech in Act IV Scene I, where she speaks to Shylock,


      The quality of mercy is not strained.
      It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
      Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
      It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
      Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
      The throned monarch better than his crown.
      His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
      The attribute to awe and majesty,
      Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
      But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
      It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
      It is an attribute of God himself;
      And earthly power doth then show like God's
      When mercy seasons justice.

      I had to memorize this for my 9th grade Lit class and was surprised to see how much of it I still remember after all these years.
      I'm having my 9th grader read this play now for her Lit class. I hope I can help her to appreciate this more than I did at her age ☺
    • 2/5
      It was ok.
    • 3/5
      Shylock is a Jewish money-lender who faces the scorn and contempt of the Christian business community in 16th century Venice on a daily basis. Quite understandably, he seethes with anger over the anti-semitic slurs to which he is routinely subjected, but seizes the chance to get even when his arch-rival, the merchant Antonio, needs to borrow money. Shylock’s terms for the loan are simple: no interest will be charged (as per the Christian tradition against usury), but he will literally carve a pound of flesh from Antonio’s body if the principal repayment is even a day late. Of course, Antonio does miss that deadline and Shylock fully intends to carry out the contract’s sinister terms. However, the resourceful Portia—who has just married Antonio’s best friend Bassanio—steps into the legal dispute at the last moment, sparing Antonio’s life at the cost of everything that Shylock possesses or holds dear, including the religious faith to which he has been devoted his whole life. Antonio leaves the courtroom physically and financially intact—he does not even have to repay the loan—while Shylock exits a wholly broken man.Does the basic plot of The Merchant of Venice sound like the stuff of one of Shakespeare’s more rollicking comedies? If you think not, then we think alike. Indeed, I had a decidedly mixed reaction to this story, which I read rather than saw acted out on stage. On one hand, it is Shakespeare, so the story was briskly paced and the word play was occasionally brilliant (e.g., the time-honored expressions “pound of flesh,” “all that glisters is not gold,” and “the quality of mercy is not strained” appear in this play). However, I found it hard to root either for the alleged good guys—Antonio, Bassanio, Gratiano, Lorenzo—or against Shylock, who never really deserves anything that happens to him throughout the tale and is even betrayed in a remarkably callous manner by his own daughter, Jessica. The problem may well be that, in Shylock, the Immortal Bard created an intriguing and incredibly complex character when all he probably meant to do was provide some dramatic tension to get in the way of an otherwise silly love story. In fact, in this respect I am tempted to say that Shakespeare was hoisted by his own petard, but that would be a different play altogether.
    • 4/5
      I read this a few years ago for an Intro to Shakespeare class. It was my favorite play we covered with the exception of The Tempest. My memory is a little fuzzy, but I do recall enjoying it and laughing out loud at several parts. Shakespeare's word play is wonderful. I also feel that whether you try to read this from an anti-Semitist point of view or choose to view Shylock as a sympathetic character, you will still find a lot of enjoyment in this. It is also interesting to think about law interpretation and the loop holes in the law and how they still exist today.Side note: I watched the 2004 version of this with Al Pacino and felt that it stayed very true to the heart of the play. 
    • 3/5
      A very interesting drama, it is well to watch many different performances to see the many nuances which can be ascribed to this play. From base racism and bigotry, to pathos and compassion. Was Shylock a caricature? Was he greedy and grasping, or was he maligned, persecuted and misunderstood? Lots of food for thought here.
    • 4/5
      Holds up quite well upon re-reading. Although I'm now too old to play Portia, I still love her. Shylock gets a bad rap, but that's zeitgeist for you. At least Shakespeare tries to give background for him and he's not just pure evil (for no reason).
    • 5/5
      To call this play unique would be a misnomer since Shakespeare was hardly original with the subject matter of his plays. I believe that the only play that came entirely from Shakespeare's imagination would have been The Tempest. Most of his other plays he had either borrowed from historical events or earlier works, usually both. There is even some suggestion that a number of plays (particularly Hamlet) were based on older plays, and Shakespeare basically compiled and rewrote them into the form that we have today. The reason that I suggest that The Merchant of Venice is unique is because it does not seem to follow the pattern that most of Shakespeare's other plays follow. But first a synopsis.The play is based around two plots, the first plot being a romance and the second being a claim for a debt to be paid. The main characters of this play are Antonio (a merchant), Shylok (a Jewish money lender), Portia (a beautiful princess), Jessica (Portia's friend and Shylock's daughter), Bassiano (a suitor to Portia and a friend of Antonio), and Lorenzo (the suitor to Jessica and a friend of Bassiano and Antonio). Portia has quite a lot of suitors, so to pick the right one she has three chests, one of gold, one of silver, and one of lead. Inside one of the chests (the lead one) is a image of her, and the suitors must chose the correct chest to win her hand in marriage. Pretty much all of the suitors pick the wrong chest, going for the gold and the silver, however when Bassiano comes (and Portia is in love with Bassiano, but everybody must play the game), he picks the correct chest, and they go off and get married. However, this is halfway through the play (and is odd because in most Shakespearian comedies, the marriage comes at the end).Getting an audience with Portia is not cheap though, so to do that Bassiano approaches his friend Antonio, but all of Antonio's money is tied up in investments, so to help out his friend, he attempts to borrow money from Shylock. The catch is (and there are always lots of catches in Shakespearian comedies) is that Shylock hates Antonio because, to put it simply, Antonio is an anti-semetic pig. So, seeing Antonio's desperation, he agrees to lend him the money with a pound of his flesh (in the region of the heart) as surety. Unfortunately for Antonio, disaster strikes and he pretty much loses all of his investments which leaves him with no money and a Jew banging on his door demanding payment.This is all resolved at court, and while it appears that all is lost, and Shylock refuses to show mercy, since he now has his enemy over a barrel, a doctor's apprentice and his servant enters (who turn out to be Portia and Jessica in disguise), who, through clever legal argument, point out that while the bond is solid and Antonio must give up his pound of flesh, the bond does not give any right to take any blood, and further, no Jew may spill a drop of Christian blood, on pain of death. So, the tables are turned, Antonio escapes his debt, and Shylock is punished.It would seem that the play should end here, however it doesn't: there is at least two more scenes afterward. In payment for their services Portia (in disguise) convinces Bassiano to give up a ring that he had promised Portia never to let go, and Jessica does the same with Lorenzo. When they return, they are then confronted by their respective ladies as to the location of the ring. This is Shakespearian comedy at its best, especially how both Lorenzo and Bassiano sweat over how, in such a short time, they have betrayed the trust of their loved ones.I am hesitant to say this, particularly since with a looking at a 16th Century play, that it appears to be about racism, and I will quote one of Shylock's lines below, but I find it difficult to conclude that it really is racist. Indeed, Shakespeare does make some comment on how despite their beliefs both Jews and Christians are still human, yet Shylock is still considered the antagonist, and it is his refusal to show mercy, even if he were to be paid 10 times what is owed, that causes us to lose all sympathy for him. Granted, the play does appear to be anti-semetic, but we must remember that this was what was happening at the time. I do not believe Shakespeare is deliberately targeting Jews here, and especially since it was illegal for Christians to lend money to Christians and charge interest, the only way people could obtain loans were through the Jews. In fact, the Jews were the bankers of the Middle Ages (though this medieval attitude must have changed early on in the Renaissance where the Medicis, a Christian family, were considered to be the founders of modern banking).What about women's liberation? Lets us consider this aspect of the play: Portia is a very strong willed and dominant character; she keeps her suitors at bay with a test that they may pass; she has demonstrated that she has superb rhetorical ability; she is incredibly knowledgeable; and incredibly mischievous; her trick with the ring pretty much has Bassiano wrapped around her finger - in a flurry of kind words, she binds him to a promise, and within a day, forces him to break that promise; She then forces Bassiano into submission through the use of guilt over how he not only broke a vow that he had made to her, but that a day had not even passed before he broke that vow. While it is true that women of the middle ages were not all beaten into submission, the actions and the ability of Portia is staggering. She is able to interact within the world of men just as well, or even better, than most dignified men could. I find Portia to be an amazing character, and considering the date of this play, to be somewhat ahead of her time, though we should remember that this was also written during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a classic example of a woman doing a man's job, and doing it rather well at that. Maybe, just maybe, Portia represents Elizabeth in demonstrating that a woman can do just as well as any man in the world of men.To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else,it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, andhindered me half a million; laughed at my losses,mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted mybargains, cooled my friends, heated mineenemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hathnot 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, healed by the same means,warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, asa Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poisonus, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we notrevenge? If we are like you in the rest, we willresemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christianwrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be byChristian example? Why, revenge. The villany youteach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but Iwill better the instruction.
    • 4/5
      In which a charming and entertaining romantic comedy is intertwined with a very grim portrait of a wronged outcast who has lost the ability to forgive.
    • 5/5
      This seems to essentially be Shakespeare's response to The Jew of Malta, so if you've read that, this will seem very familiar to you. However, the language used is far more memorable, the lead character more sympathetic, and the story shaped to fit a different genre. This means that it ends on a far less tragic note, and also that it secures its place in history as one of Shakespeare's masterpieces. Essentially, it is a story of failed revenge, love, and injustice. As to the edition itself, I found it to be greatly helpful in understanding the action in the play. It has a layout which places each page of the play opposite a page of notes, definitions, explanations, and other things needed to understand that page more thoroughly. While I didn't always need it, I was certainly glad to have it whenever I ran into a turn of language that was unfamiliar, and I definitely appreciated the scene-by-scene summaries. Really, if you want to or need to read Shakespeare, an edition such as this is really the way to go, especially until you get more accustomed to it.
    • 3/5
      Had a tough time rating Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice." I actually found it to be one of Shakespeare's stronger stories and his frequently used disguise device works well and cleverly here. Portia is a pretty strong and clever female character, which I enjoyed all the more for its rarity amongst Shakespeare's works.The play was difficult to read, however, because of the anti-Semitic aspects that really permeate the text.
    • 4/5
      Beautiful and wealthy Portia is looking for a husband, and Bassanio wants to try for her hand but he is too poor to present himself as a viable suitor. He turns to his best friend Antonio, who has several ships expected with cargo that will bring him more wealth. The two friends go to Shylock the moneylender for a loan, but Shylock uses their need to set up his revenge. Antonio has always taunted and demeaned the Jewish moneylender, so rather than contracting for property if Antonio defaults on the loan, Shylock demands a pound of the debtor's flesh.The speeches by Shylock are the most famous of this play and though he is overall portrayed as a cruel man who is openly hated by the others, including his own daughter, he is also given the opportunity to point out that his religion makes him no less human than a Christian. I would think modern audiences would see him as a more empathetic character than Antonio, whose cruelty is addressed with an admission that he has called Shylock a dog and spat on him in the past and is likely to do it in the future. The courtroom scene near the end is tense as Shylock demands payment.
    • 5/5
      Those hypocritical bastards! Once a comedy, now a tragedy for those of us who aren't anti-Semitic. Although given the global financial crisis, perhaps a comedy once more if you replace "the Jew" with "the banker".
    • 2/5
      It has been read and over-read for school till it has lost all its dramatic value for me. But the true fact of the matter is that Shylock is an everlasting character who will never erase himself from common memory.
    • 5/5
      CHRIS-TIANS! CHRIS-TIANS! GOTTA GIVE IT UP FOR CHRIS-TIANS! EVERYTHING GOES GREAT FOR CHRIS-TIANS! There are, as we know, many unresolvable interpretative ourobori in this play--the anti-Semitism thing, the relationship of Antonio and Bassanio, the very vexed question of the Venetian oath, that false thing, and what yet makes Bassanio and Portia infinitely cold and clean and Shylock a quintessence of grime--I mean to say, better to rule one's house in the Ghetto than serve in Belmont, right? As Jessica will learn, to her sorrow? The fact that the passionate malice of the Italians is so much more terrifying, here, than the grim legalmindedness of the Jew? These are all interesting things, and this great play is chock-full of more cool thoughts like them--about capitalism, about youth sucking age dry like the New Testament does the Old, about the Prince of Morocco as a secret counterpoint to Shylock--the Semite prince, cartoonishly accipitrine, flourishing a scimitar-world of infinite princehood--versus the Semite moneylender, ever debased below his pecuniary value, from the people who had their princes taken away long ago. And you can get diverted and watch a smartass Hermione Granger type (In the context of Christian and post-Christian hatred, I use the word "progress" with infinite trepidation, but surely the fact that our generation's reincarnation of the bright spark who always has something up her sleeve is a Mudblood fighting Voldemort and his crew of wizard Nazis, and not an abjurer and defender and reinscriber of racial boundaries around the home, possibly that's a small good thing?) break a bitter old man and clear the road for wedding-ring hijinx--and you know that for the happy crew at the middle, somehow the bill for the uneasy edge that their ringplay has in that extraordinary final scene falls at Shylock's door too. You can do all that but when you stop just watching the sweet show and try to resolve something, close any one of the doors that Shakespeare so suggestively leaves open, you find yourself tying yourself in knots, and getting into some really dark places. Why? Because it doesn't matter how we arrange our interpretations; there is no version of this play where Shylock's not fucked from the beginning, because he's the villain and the groundlings want him to get a kick, and there's no version where he's not the villain--there never will be--why? Because he's the Jew. And suddenly it hits you--it hits generic Gentile me--why the representation of people like you as good and kind that the mainstream culture has always taken for granted is the most essential thing in the world. Because otherwise, on some level, from the earliest age, you're afraid that you're bad. And the rest of it proceeds inexorably outward from that fundamental trauma. Why does Antonio loathe Shylock? He's easy to loathe, because he's never had a role open to him that wasn't loathsome. Why does Shylock loathe Antonio? Because he's just as loathsome, only--roles again--nobody will ever see it, because he's inherited the snowy mantle of lion in winter. It's like how racism isn't wrong because those people we hate didn't have a choice about being hateful; that's not why; it's wrong because we didn't give them a choice. We made them hateful with our stories--and to the degree that they're hateful, it's no wonder, but for the dizzying degree that we've just revealed ourselves as hateful, there's no bond, no pound of flesh. We're just bastards.I saw Merchant the other night, and the dude who played Shylock didn't do this scene this way, but it came to me in the middle with an awful shiver and became, for me, this play's fearsome core: the speech? "Hath not a Jew hands?" Imagine Shylock, not defiant, not roaring, not cold as ice, not looking for pity, but gnawing his fingers, hitting himself in the head, throwing himself against the walls, saying "Is not a Jew bad--bad--BAD--just like a Christian? And will he not revenge, as a way of stopping himself from going home in the mirror and driving a toothpick into his face?" His defiance becomes his heroism, the refusal to make that traumatic break with himself. Antonio's not that strong, and I bet he goes to his guest room at Belmont and hears the young cavorting and looks at the lines on his face and does something horrible to himself. Every time Shylock walks out of that courtroom and we leave him for the winners, it's unforgivable, because behind the scenes somewhere there's the mutilated self, the violated body. Our great art shows us that body--but our greatest art makes us complicit in not wanting to see it, but being aware it's there. This is no happy ending, nor even a clean tragedian sleep of death. This is a bunch of damaged and undermined people walking away to sow the crimes of the future.
    • 5/5
      Yes, it is a great play, with a truly original plot, but what about the social statement? Is the theme of the book anti-semitic? Shylock's actions and demeanors could be seen as evidence of Shakespeare's possible dislike for jews. On the other hand, is the play more a lesson on how revenge, even if prompted by justified feelings of persecution and harassment, is not morally right? Maybe it is about the latter, but the play's language depicts the jewish stereotypes that have been used by anti-semites throughout history. Perhaps it is about both, and the language reserved for Shylock, his dead wife and Rebecca are intended only as a reflection of the period's socially inevitable disposition toward jews. Once again, Shakespeare leaves us with unanswered questions.