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Title: The Merchant of Venice Author: William Shakespeare Pages: 77 First published: 1597 Genre: Play Recommended for: Students and avid readers Sequel: No Sequel My rating: 7/10 This is a very famous play by Sir William Shakespeare, and is very recommendable for anyone who like to read, particularly old fashioned books, and who likes to study people such as Shakespeare himself or that era. The book is about love, betray, money, and religious acceptance. It is a very good portray of the 16th century, and does carry a lot of symbolism and quite revolutionary ideas for the time being. I must say, this is a very short book, the language is beautiful and its fairly easy to read. However, if youre not a book anfacinado such as myself, and you dont particularly enjoy the language and/or writing from such a far away time, this book might not be the place to start. I dont know why Im making this book sound so bad, because I genuinely enjoyed it, and I think the story is unique, and something you wont read everywhere. I liked it a lot.

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About author: William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564; died 23 April 1616)[nb 1] was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.[1] He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon".[2][nb 2] His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays,[nb 3] 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.[3] Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613.[5][nb 4] His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the 16th century. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights Characters

Antonio a merchant of Venice Bassanio Antonio's friend, in love with Portia; suitor likewise to her Gratiano, Solanio, Salarino, Salerio friends of Antonio and Bassanio Lorenzo friend of Antonio and Bassanio, in love with Jessica Portia a rich heiress Nerissa Portia's waiting-maid Balthazar Portia's disguise as a lawyer Stephano Nerissa's disguise as 'Balthazar's law clerk. Shylock a rich Jew, moneylender, father of Jessica Tubal a Jew; Shylock's friend Jessica daughter of Shylock, in love with Lorenzo Lancelot Gobbo a foolish man in the service of Shylock Old Gobbo father of Lancelot Leonardo servant to Bassanio Duke of Venice Venetian authority who presides over the case of Shylock's Prince of Morocco suitor to Portia Prince of Aragon suitor to Portia Magnificoes of Venice, officers of the Court of Justice, Gaoler, servants to Portia,

bond

and other Attendants The Merchant of Venice is a tragic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Though classified as a comedy in the First

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Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps most remembered for its dramatic scenes, and is best known for Shylock and the famous 'Hath not a Jew eyes' speech. Also notable is Portia's speech about the 'quality of mercy'. The title character is the merchant Antonio, not the Jewish moneylender Shylock, who is the play's most prominent and most famous character. This is made explicit by the title page of the first quarto: The mot excellent Hitorie of the Merchant of Venice. With the extreame crueltie of Shylock the Iewe towards the ayd Merchant, in cutting a iut pound of his fleh: and the obtayning of Portia by the choye of three chets. General Note: In January 2009 I decided that Id like to go back and read all the plays of William Shakespeare, perhaps one a month if that works out. I hadnt read a Shakespeare play since 1959, 50 years ago! But I had read nearly all of them in college. I wanted to go back, start with something not too serious or challenging, and work my way through the whole corpus. Thus I began with The Two Gentlemen of Verona. At this time I have no idea how the project will go, nor if it will actually lead me through the entire corpus of Shakespeares plays. However, I will keep a separate page listing each play Ive read with links to any comments I would make of that particular play. See: List of Shakespeares plays Ive read and commented on THE MERCHANT OF VENICE This is the fifth play Ive read in my return to Shakespeare after so many years, and it my favorite so far. I found its several interwoven plots to be fascinating and well done. Shakespeares psychological insight into the human character is impressive and the passion involved grabbed me right away. I didnt find as many quotable lines in this play as some others, but I did have my favorites, a couple I cite below. Ironically the main character is not Antonio, the merchant of Venice. Rather, it is Shylock, the Jewish money lender. While I think there is no way one would consider Shylock a nice fellow. I came away believing that he was more wronged than anyone in the play whom he harmed. He is presented as a nasty and greedy money lender. No doubt that portrait played well in a time of rampant anti-Semitism, but I came away with great sympathy for him. Even Antonio, the merchant, is just horrible in his judgment of Shylock, much more based on his race and religion than his money-lending practices. The plot of the play is a set of complex and interwoven actions. I enjoyed that. Where does it actually begin, is it in Bassanios desire to win the hand of Portia, the rich and beautiful young heiress, or in Antonios hatred of Jews and money-lenders? I guess both are the setting that makes it all work. In any case Bassiano, Antonios friend, needs to borrow 3,000 ducats in order to have the money he needs to seek Portias hand. Antonio is perfectly willing to lend the money to him, but has all his capital tied up in his business. Since Bassanio has no collateral, Antonio goes to Shylock to borrow money. Shylock hates Antonio because of the latters treatment of him and his attitude toward him, so, he extracts a contract in which were Antonio not to repay the debt on the designated day, then Shylock gets a pound of Antonios flesh. Obviously an odd, even perverse demand, but Shylock is deeply smarting from the verbal abuse he has received from Antonio for years.

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The Bassanio / Portia story is wonderful. Her father had died but left a very strange will. He has three caskets one of gold, one of silver and the last of lead. One of them has a portrait of Portia in it. Any appropriate suitor may come forward and pick one of the caskets. Her father has left strange clues for the suitors. If the suitor doesnt guess correctly and opens an empty casket, then he must leave without a single word and must never marry for the rest of his life. If he opens the casket with the portrait, then he marries Portia. She has nothing to say about it. A third plot line is a love affair between Lorenzo, a friend of Bassanio, and Jessica, Shylocks daughter. These two have no problem with the Christian/Jewish union, and Jessica even steals a great deal of her fathers wealth to elope with Lorenzo. In the end, of course, Bassanio wins Portia, Lorenzo and Jessica escape, but Antonio cant pay his debt on time and Shylock demands his pound of flesh in the court of law. In the courtroom Portia gives her famous quality of mercy speech, one of the wellknown Shakespeare speeches which is often excerpted. However, I was much more moved by Shylocks defense of himself against the prejudices of Antonio and others: "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, heal'd by the same means/ warm'd and cool'd 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?" While I dont like Shylocks bitterness and sense of revenge, I can understand it for exactly the reasons he gives and I have more sympathy for Shylock than for the difficulty that Antonio got into. My other favorite lines in the play are in no way special poetry and have virtually nothing that advances the plot. I love the lines for their own sake and how much they relate to my own life. My partner, Sally, and I eat our main meal about 2 PM in the afternoon. We generally do the meal in two or three courses, served serially and we visit. Our meal often takes two hours, the luxury of being retired. This is some of the best time we have each day to talk. To talk of everything; world events weve been hearing on National Public Radio all day, the latest soccer news out of England, interesting e-mails weve gotten, and often pleasant discussion of the joys of our lives. I think those long conversations over our meals are among the greatest joys in our lives. This is so for Lorenzo, but Jessica is a bit more eager. He has given her some indication of the depth of his love for her and she wants to tell him her view of their love. She wants to tell him NOW. He says, no. It should be done over dinner and I just loved the sentiment. This is the exchange I so enjoyed: [Lorenzo has told Jessica of how loving and caring Bassanio is of Portia and then begins] Even such a husband

Hast thou of me as she is for a wife. [Jessica] Nay, but ask my opinion too of that. [Lorenzo] I will anon. First let us go to dinner. [Jessica] Nay, let me praise you while I have stomach. [Lorenzo] No, pray thee, let it serve for table talk; Then howsomeer thou speakst, mong other things I shall digest it. [Jessica] Well, Ill set you forth.

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Ah yes, I have been there Lorenzo, and is so true! The Merchant of Venice is a wonderful read. Touching, challenging, insightful and fascinating; just a delightful read.