The Merchant of Venice

The play is frequently staged today, but is potentially troubling to modern audiences because of its central themes, which can easily appear antisemitic. Critics today still continue to argue over the play's stance on the Jews and Judaism.

Shylock and Jessica (1876) by Maurycy Gottlieb

English society in the Elizabethan and Jacobean era has been described as "judeophobic".[8] English Jews had been expelled under Edward I in 1290 and were not permitted to return until 1656 under the rule of Oliver Cromwell. Poet John Donne, who was Dean of St Paul's Cathedral and a contemporary of Shakespeare, gave a sermon in 1624 perpetuating the Blood Libel – the entirely unsubstantiated antisemitic lie that Jews ritually murdered Christians to drink their blood and achieve salvation.[9] In Venice and in some other places, Jews were required to wear a red hat at all times in public to make sure that they were easily identified, and had to live in a ghetto.[10]

Shakespeare's play may be seen as a continuation of this tradition.[11] The title page of the Quarto indicates that the play was sometimes known as The Jew of Venice in its day, which suggests that it was seen as similar to Marlowe's early 1590s work The Jew of Malta. One interpretation of the play's structure is that Shakespeare meant to contrast the mercy of the main Christian characters with the Old Testament vengefulness of a Jew, who lacks the religious grace to comprehend mercy. Similarly, it is possible that Shakespeare meant Shylock's forced conversion to Christianity to be a "happy ending" for the character, as, to a Christian audience, it saves his soul and allows him to enter Heaven.[12]

Regardless of what Shakespeare's authorial intent may have been, the play has been made use of by antisemites throughout the play's history. The Nazis used the usurious Shylock for their propaganda. Shortly after Kristallnacht in 1938, The Merchant of Venice was broadcast for propagandistic ends over the German airwaves. Productions of the play followed in Lübeck (1938), Berlin (1940), and elsewhere within the Nazi territory.[13]

In a series of articles called Observer, first published in 1785, British playwright Richard Cumberland created a character named Abraham Abrahams, who is quoted as saying, "I verily believe the odious character of Shylock has brought little less persecution upon us, poor scattered sons of Abraham, than the Inquisition itself."[14] Cumberland later wrote a successful play, The Jew (1794), in which his title character, Sheva, is portrayed sympathetically, as both a kindhearted and generous man. This was the first known attempt by a dramatist to reverse the negative stereotype that Shylock personified.[15]

The depiction of Jews in literature throughout the centuries bears the close imprint of Shylock. With slight variations much of English literature up until the 20th century depicts the Jew as "a monied, cruel, lecherous, avaricious outsider tolerated only because of his golden hoard".[16]

Shylock and Portia (1835) by Thomas Sully

Many modern readers and theatregoers have read the play as a plea for tolerance, noting that Shylock is a sympathetic character. They cite as evidence that Shylock's "trial" at the end of the play is a mockery of justice, with Portia acting as a judge when she has no right to do so. The characters who berated Shylock for dishonesty resort to trickery in order to win. In addition to this Shakespeare gives Shylock one of his most eloquent speeches:

Salerio. Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his flesh. What's that good for?
Shylock. To bait fish withal; if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me and hindered me half a million, laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies – and what's his reason? 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? 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 his sufferance 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

It is difficult to know whether the sympathetic reading of Shylock is entirely due to changing sensibilities among readers – or whether Shakespeare, a writer who created complex, multi-faceted characters, deliberately intended this reading.

One of the reasons for this interpretation is that Shylock's painful status in Venetian society is emphasised. To some critics, Shylock's celebrated "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech redeems him and even makes him into something of a tragic figure; in the speech, Shylock argues that he is no different from the Christian characters.[17] Detractors note that Shylock ends the speech with a tone of revenge: "if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" Those who see the speech as sympathetic point out that Shylock says he learned the desire for revenge from the Christian characters: "If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance 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."

Even if Shakespeare did not intend the play to be read this way, the fact that it retains its power on stage for audiences who may perceive its central conflicts in radically different terms is an illustration of the subtlety of Shakespeare's characterisations.[18] In the trial Shylock represents what Elizabethan Christians believed to be the Jewish desire for "justice", contrasted with their obviously superior Christian value of mercy. The Christians in the courtroom urge Shylock to love his enemies, although they themselves have failed in the past. Jewish critic Harold Bloom suggests that, although the play gives merit to both cases, the portraits are not even-handed: "Shylock's shrewd indictment of Christian hypocrisy delights us, but ... Shakespeare's intimations do not alleviate the savagery of his portrait of the Jew..."[19]

Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Shylock, painted by Charles Buchel (1895–1935)

Antonio's unexplained depression – "In sooth I know not why I am so sad" – and utter devotion to Bassanio has led some critics to theorise that he is suffering from unrequited love for Bassanio and is depressed because Bassanio is coming to an age where he will marry a woman. In his plays and poetry Shakespeare often depicted strong male bonds of varying homosociality, which has led some critics to infer that Bassanio returns Antonio's affections despite his obligation to marry:[20]

ANTONIO: Commend me to your honourable wife:
Tell her the process of Antonio's end,
Say how I lov'd you, speak me fair in death;
And, when the tale is told, bid her be judge
Whether Bassanio had not once a love.

BASSANIO: But life itself, my wife, and all the world
Are not with me esteemed above thy life;
I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all
Here to this devil, to deliver you. (IV, i)

In his essay "Brothers and Others", published in The Dyer's Hand, W. H. Auden describes Antonio as "a man whose emotional life, though his conduct may be chaste, is concentrated upon a member of his own sex." Antonio's feelings for Bassanio are likened to a couplet from Shakespeare's Sonnets: "But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,/ Mine be thy love, and my love's use their treasure." Antonio, says Auden, embodies the words on Portia's leaden casket: "Who chooseth me, must give and hazard all he hath." Antonio has taken this potentially fatal turn because he despairs, not only over the loss of Bassanio in marriage but also because Bassanio cannot requite what Antonio feels for him. Antonio's frustrated devotion is a form of idolatry: the right to live is yielded for the sake of the loved one. There is one other such idolator in the play: Shylock himself. "Shylock, however unintentionally, did, in fact, hazard all for the sake of destroying the enemy he hated, and Antonio, however unthinkingly he signed the bond, hazarded all to secure the happiness of the man he loved." Both Antonio and Shylock, agreeing to put Antonio's life at a forfeit, stand outside the normal bounds of society. There was, states Auden, a traditional "association of sodomy with usury", reaching back at least as far as Dante, with which Shakespeare was likely familiar. (Auden sees the theme of usury in the play as a comment on human relations in a mercantile society.)

Other interpreters of the play regard Auden's conception of Antonio's sexual desire for Bassanio as questionable. Michael Radford, director of the 2004 film version starring Al Pacino, explained that, although the film contains a scene where Antonio and Bassanio actually kiss, the friendship between the two is platonic, in line with the prevailing view of male friendship at the time. Jeremy Irons, in an interview, concurs with the director's view and states that he did not "play Antonio as gay". Joseph Fiennes, however, who plays Bassanio, encouraged a homoerotic interpretation and, in fact, surprised Irons with the kiss on set, which was filmed in one take. Fiennes defended his choice, saying "I would never invent something before doing my detective work in the text. If you look at the choice of language ... you'll read very sensuous language. That's the key for me in the relationship. The great thing about Shakespeare and why he's so difficult to pin down is his ambiguity. He's not saying they're gay or they're straight, he's leaving it up to his actors. I feel there has to be a great love between the two characters ... there's great attraction. I don't think they have slept together but that's for the audience to decide."[21]

The playbill from a 1741 production at the Theatre Royal of Drury Lane

Jewish actor Jacob Adler and others report that the tradition of playing Shylock sympathetically began in the first half of the 19th century with Edmund Kean,[26] and that previously the role had been played "by a comedian as a repulsive clown or, alternatively, as a monster of unrelieved evil." Kean's Shylock established his reputation as an actor.[27]

From Kean's time forward, all of the actors who have famously played the role, with the exception of Edwin Booth, who played Shylock as a simple villain, have chosen a sympathetic approach to the character; even Booth's father, Junius Brutus Booth, played the role sympathetically. Henry Irving's portrayal of an aristocratic, proud Shylock (first seen at the Lyceum in 1879, with Portia played by Ellen Terry) has been called "the summit of his career".[28] Jacob Adler was the most notable of the early 20th century: Adler played the role in Yiddish-language translation, first in Manhattan's Yiddish Theater District in the Lower East Side, and later on Broadway, where, to great acclaim, he performed the role in Yiddish in an otherwise English-language production.[29]

Kean and Irving presented a Shylock justified in wanting his revenge; Adler's Shylock evolved over the years he played the role, first as a stock Shakespearean villain, then as a man whose better nature was overcome by a desire for revenge, and finally as a man who operated not from revenge but from pride. In a 1902 interview with Theater magazine, Adler pointed out that Shylock is a wealthy man, "rich enough to forgo the interest on three thousand ducats" and that Antonio is "far from the chivalrous gentleman he is made to appear. He has insulted the Jew and spat on him, yet he comes with hypocritical politeness to borrow money of him." Shylock's fatal flaw is to depend on the law, but "would he not walk out of that courtroom head erect, the very apotheosis of defiant hatred and scorn?"[30]

Some modern productions take further pains to show the sources of Shylock's thirst for vengeance. For instance, in the 2004 film adaptation directed by Michael Radford and starring Al Pacino as Shylock, the film begins with text and a montage of how Venetian Jews are cruelly abused by bigoted Christians. One of the last shots of the film also brings attention to the fact that, as a convert, Shylock would have been cast out of the Jewish community in Venice, no longer allowed to live in the ghetto. Another interpretation of Shylock and a vision of how "must he be acted" appears at the conclusion of the autobiography of Alexander Granach, a noted Jewish stage and film actor in Weimar Germany (and later in Hollywood and on Broadway).[31]

• 1914 – The Merchant of Venice, a silent film directed by Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley.
  • Weber played Portia and Smalley, her husband, played Shylock. With this film, Weber became the first woman to direct a full-length feature film in America.[32]
• 1916 – The Merchant of Venice, an unsuccessful silent British film produced by Walter West for Broadwest.[33]
• 1923 – The Merchant of Venice (Der Kaufmann von Venedig), also The Jew of Mestri, a silent German film directed by Peter Paul Felner.
  • Though based in part on Shakespeare's play, it was also based on Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta, as well as stories by Giovanni Fiorentino, Masuccio Salernitano and Pietro Aretino.[34]
• 1941 – Shylock, an Indian Tamil language film directed by the duo Sama-Ramu.[35]
• 1969 – The Merchant of Venice, an unreleased 40-minute television film directed by and starring Orson Welles; the film was completed, but the soundtrack for all but the first reel was stolen before it could be released.[36]
• 1972 – The Merchant of Venice, BBC video-taped television version directed by Cedric Messina for the BBC's Play of the Month series.[37]
  • Cast includes Maggie Smith, Frank Finlay, Charles Gray and Christopher Gable.[37]
• 1973 – The Merchant of Venice British Associated Television version directed by John Sichel. Broadcast in the United States over ABC-TV.[38][39]
  • Set in the late Victorian era, the cast included Laurence Olivier as Shylock, Anthony Nicholls as Antonio, Jeremy Brett as Bassanio, and Joan Plowright as Portia.[38]
• 1980 – The Merchant of Venice, a version for the BBC Television Shakespeare directed by Jack Gold.[40]
  • The cast includes Gemma Jones as Portia, Warren Mitchell as Shylock and John Nettles as Bassanio.[40]
• 1996 – The Merchant of Venice, a Channel 4 television film directed by Alan Horrox.[41]
  • The cast included Bob Peck as Shylock and Haydn Gwynne as Portia.[41]
• 2001 – The Merchant of Venice, a Royal National Theatre production directed by Trevor Nunn.[42]
  • Set around 1930, Henry Goodman played Shylock.[42]
• 2002 – The Māori Merchant of Venice, directed by Don Selwyn.[43]
  • In Māori, with English subtitles. This film was based on a 1945 translation of the play to Māori by Pei Te Hurinui Jones.[43]
• 2003 – In Shakespeare's Merchant, a film directed by Paul Wagar, Antonio and Bassanio have a homosexual relationship.[44][45]
• 2004 – The Merchant of Venice, directed by Michael Radford and produced by Barry Navidi.
  • This was the first "big-screen" adaptation of the play. The cast included Al Pacino as Shylock, Jeremy Irons as Antonio, Joseph Fiennes as Bassanio, Lynn Collins as Portia, and Zuleikha Robinson as Jessica.[46]
• Broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 22 April 2018 and transposing the plot from Venice to the City of London and the financial crisis of 2007–2008. The cast included Andrew Scott as Shylock, Ray Fearon as Antonio, Colin Morgan as Bassanio, Hayley Atwell as Portia, and Lauren Cornelius as Jessica.[47]

• Josef Bohuslav Foerster's three-act Czech opera Jessika was first performed at the Prague National Theatre in 1905.[48][49]
• Adrian Welles Beecham, 15-year-old son of Sir Thomas Beecham, composed an operatic version which premiered at the Grand Theatre in Brighton on 18 September 1922 followed by 32 performances at the Duke of York's Theatre in London from 20 November to 16 December 1922.[50] Augustus Milner sang Shylock, later replaced during the run by producer F. R. Benson.[50] Although described in the vocal score as "a Shakespearean Opera" the play was perhaps better defined as a "play with music", with 27 musical sections or arias.[51]
• Reynaldo Hahn's three-act French opera Le marchand de Venise was first performed at the Paris Opéra on 25 March 1935.[52][53]
• The late André Tchaikowsky's (1935–1982) opera The Merchant of Venice premiered at the Bregenz Festival[54][55] on 18 July 2013.

Edmond Haraucourt, French playwright and poet, was commissioned in the 1880s by the actor and theatrical director Paul Porel to make a French-verse adaptation of The Merchant of Venice. His play Shylock, first performed at the Théâtre de l'Odéon in December 1889, had incidental music by the French composer Gabriel Fauré, later incorporated into an orchestral suite of the same name.[56]

St. John Ervine authored a sequel play, The Lady of Belmont, in 1924, in which the characters from Shakespeare's work reunite ten years after the events of the earlier play.[57]

Ralph Vaughan Williams' choral work Serenade to Music (1938) draws its text from the discussion about music and the music of the spheres in Act V, scene 1.[58]

In both versions of the comic film To Be or Not to Be (1942 and 1983) the character "Greenberg", specified as a Jew in the later version, gives a recitation of the "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech to Nazi soldiers.[59]

The rock musical Fire Angel was based on the story of the play, with the scene changed to the Little Italy district of New York. It was performed in Edinburgh in 1974 and in a revised form at Her Majesty's Theatre, London, in 1977. Braham Murray directed.[60][61]

Arnold Wesker's play The Merchant (1976) is a reimagining of Shakespeare's story.[62] In this retelling, Shylock and Antonio are friends and share a disdain for the crass anti-Semitism of the Christian community's laws.[63]

David Henry Wilson's play Shylock's Revenge, was first produced at the University of Hamburg in 1989, and follows the events in The Merchant of Venice. In this play Shylock gets his wealth back and becomes a Jew again.[64]

The Star Trek franchise sometimes quote and paraphrase Shakespeare, including The Merchant of Venice. One example is the Shakespeare-aficionado Chang in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), a Klingon, who quotes Shylock.[65]

Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993) depicts SS Lieutenant Amon Göth quoting Shylock's "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech when deciding whether to rape his Jewish maid.[66]

In David Fincher's 1995 crime thriller Seven, a lawyer, Eli Gould, is coerced to remove a pound of his own flesh and place it on a scale, alluding to the play.[67]

The German Belmont Prize was established in 1997,[68] referring to 'Belmont' as "a place of destiny where Portia's intelligence is at home." The eligibility for the award is encapsulated by the inscription on the play's lead casket, "Who chooses me must give and hazard all he hath."[69]

One of the four short stories comprising Alan Isler's The Bacon Fancier (1999) is also told from Shylock's point of view. In this story, Antonio was a converted Jew.[70]

The Pianist is a 2002 film based on a memoir by Władysław Szpilman. In this film, Henryk Szpilman reads Shylock's "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech to his brother Władysław in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Nazi occupation in World War II.[71]

In the 2009 spy comedy OSS 117: Lost in Rio, a speech by the nazi Von Zimmel parodies Shylock's tirade.[72][73]

Christopher Moore combines The Merchant of Venice and Othello in his 2014 comic novel The Serpent of Venice, in which he makes Portia (from The Merchant of Venice) and Desdemona (from Othello) sisters. All of the characters come from those two plays with the exception of Jeff (a monkey); the gigantic simpleton Drool; and Pocket, the Fool, who comes from Moore's earlier novel Fool, based on King Lear.[74]

Naomi Alderman's The Wolf in the Water is a radio-play first broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2016. The play continues the story of Shylock's daughter Jessica, who lives in an anti-semitic Venice and practices her Jewish faith in secret. Part of the BBC's Shakespeare Festival, the play also marked that 500 years had passed since the Venetian Ghetto was instituted.[75][76]

Sarah B. Mantell's Everything that Never Happened is a play first produced in 2017 at the Yale School of Drama. Similar to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, the play occurs in the gaps between scenes of the canonical The Merchant of Venice, with the characters gradually recognizing how conflicts over assimilation and anti-Semitism recur throughout past, present, and future.[77][78][79]

• Adler, Jacob (1999). A Life on the Stage: A Memoir. Translated by Lulla Rosenfeld. New York: Knopf. ISBN 0-679-41351-0.
• Bloom, Harold (2007). Heims, Neil (ed.). The Merchant of Venice. New York: Infobase. ISBN 978-0-7910-9576-8.
• Burnett, Mark (2007). Filming Shakespeare in the Global Marketplace. Springer. pp. 93–94. ISBN 978-0230800809.
• Drakakis, John, ed. (2010). The Merchant of Venice. Arden Shakespeare, third series. Bloomsbury. doi:10.5040/9781408160398.00000006. ISBN 978-1-903436-81-3 – via Bloomsbury Drama Online.
• Gross, John (1994). Shylock: A Legend and Its Legacy. Touchstone. ISBN 978-0-671-88386-7.