Is Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice anti-Semitic?

Question

I felt really bad for Shylock.

Answer 1

It's always seemed that way to me, anti-Semitism was quite common in Shakespeare's day, and nothing in his life or writings suggest that he was any kind of a social reformer. He wrote what the people paying him wanted to hear because that was his job. Almost none of what he wrote about Richard III was true, he was, after all, writing for the Grand-daughter of the man who usurped Richard's throne, just as Sir Thomas More, the originator of most of the mis-information, was writing for the man himself, but he told it so brilliantly that the play has eclipsed the facts. Most performances of "Merchant of Venice" that I've seen show Shylock as an evil man getting his just deserts, it is the mark of Shakespeare's brilliance that it could be just as validly played other ways. A truly great play doesn't have only one interpretation, I've seen both Lawrence Olivier and Derek Jacobi as Hamlet, the interpretations were total opposites and both worked, that is what the actor contributes. Never forget, Shakespeare's plays were meant to be watched, not read, you never get the full effect any other way. I used to live in London, and I've seen several performances by the Royal Shakespeare Company, all of them enriched my appreciation of the plays far beyond what I could get just reading.

Answer 2

Q: When did Shakespeare live?
A: In the 16th and 17th centuries.

Q: What were the laws in Europe at the time regarding jews?
A: They could not hold certain positions in government or run certain businesses and openly faced discrimination by christians.

Q: So why did the jews focus on obtaining money?
A: They had no political or social power, so they focused on the one source of power they could attain: economic.

Q: So the "money grubbing jew" is a stereotype?
A: Yes, a very hateful stereotype. Money making was a form of selfdefense, not a "jewish trait".

Q: What does "a pound of flesh" mean?
A: It refers to a law of that time: if a debtor did not have the money to pay when the lender demanded it, the lender could demand a literal "pound of flesh" be cut from the debtor's body.

Q: What happened if a jew owed money to a gentile?
A: You can bet the farm that gentiles would gladly hold down the jew while the lender cut off his hands.

Q: What happened if a gentile owed money to a jew?
A: That's what happened in "The Merchant of Venice". A gentile owed money, and when Shylock, the jew, tried to collect, the christians acted as though the jew was being unreasonable. What Shylock was doing was exacting legal revenge for all the discrimination and hatred he had endured from the christians his whole life. Any HE is the bad guy? The christian was trying to steal from Shylock and the jew is wrong for trying to collect? Shakespeare was pointing out the inequity and discrimination that jews faced in his time.

Q: So is "The Merchant of Venice" an anti-semetic play?
A: No. "The Merchant of Venice" displays Shakespeare's sympathy for the oppressed. Only illiterate and uneducated people who never read the play believe that.

It's much like the illiteracy and ignorance that surrounds Shakespeare's "Let's kill all the lawyers" in "Henry VI". Those who wanted to kill the lawyers were seeking anarchy and destruction of the government, and NOT an elimination of a "criminal class".

Don't people READ anything anymore?


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Answer 3

I enjoyed that book. I had some ideas that it might be also...I am not sure though and I don't want to imply that it is. But what I think Shakespeare is trying to teach is "Don't be like Shylock"! whether he was a Jew or not. If you demand raw justice from others then expect raw justice in return. It seems to be very religious in symbolism from that perspective and Christian teachings of forgiving to be able to gain forgiveness... I gained what I consider to be a very important idea from that book - Shylock is eventually in deep trouble ...he has sought to harm someone (by taking a pound of their flesh) which is against their law..."to attempt to harm someone" or to say you are going to harm them or whatever it was he did...and eventually he actually sees the light...he sees that if he pursues his lawsuit then the lawsuits will proceed against him....causing him more damage to himself than he would even inflict on his enemy....

But here is the important difference I noticed...Shylock backs off...he is not willing to go through with it...BUT here in real life ....the accuser of the brethren (Satan) is willing to suffer any amount if he can bring pain to someone else, he doesn't back off even though he has reaped misery after misery upon himself (the consequences of justice falling upon him) and even he has heaped eternal misery upon himself. And since all of us fall short of keeping the law, the adversary is trying to "cash in" on our breaking of the law...by demanding justice to fall upon us (without regards to the penalties laid upon him) and therefore we all desperately need a Savior (Jesus Christ) to step in and save us...that mercy can overcome the demands of justice.

Answer 4

Definitely.

Answer 5

He could have been all those years in the past. Jews have been banned from England for hundreds of years. Even in recent times as much as the war jews have been hated in many international locations,rightly or wrongly. The detrimental issues executed to them via the Nazis by way of fact the war seems to have improved their image,yet of direction many extreme islamists nonetheless see them as an enemy regrettably. i in my opinion have continuously supported Jewish people.