I am writing an essay. The title is: Is 'The Merchant of Venice' a racist play?

Question

Can anyone suggest any useful essays/criticism that I can read for research?

Answer 1

Link 1 contains essays and information exploring the possibility of anti-semitism in "The Merchant of Venice"

Link 2 is a piece that appeared in the Guardian newspaper on the same subject

Link 3 goes to a free essay

Answer 2

Venice (Venezia) actually needs number release, see getting there with hotelbye . This city is a huge fabled destination for centuries. Only the title Venice is sufficient to conjure up a number of photos, actually for many who have not even collection base in Italy. From gondoliers in striped jerseys to the Rialto and the Bridge of Sighs, masked balls, golden barges, courtesans in gondolas and crumbling palaces facing roads made from water Venice is an incredible city. When the only bridge over the Grand Canal, Rialto Bridge scars the spot of the island's first settlement, named Rivus Altus and is now one of many lots of place that Venice must offer.

Answer 3

Yes, the widely held views of it's time, as the other respondent says, is something that has to be considered first and foremost in your analysis of an author and a play from 300 years ago. Make sure you are not trying to judge Shakespeare outside of his context. He is a product of a civilization which had very different ideas about race and nationality, and a different idea of what was offensive. In the Merchant of Venice and in Othello, Shakespeare explores the clash of cultures in a way that is sympathetic and disarmingly human given the general level of such discourse at that time.

Answer 4

Oh, indeed, The Merchant of Venice is an anti-semitic play. No doubt about that. No doubt written to exploit the anti-semitism common in an Elizabethan audience.

But it also has one of the most profound speeches, certainly of that time period, exposing and refuting anti-semitism.

Shylock: ". . . . He hath disgrac'd me and hind'red me half a million; laugh'd at my losses, mock'd 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."

Here is how one critic comments on this passage: "With this, Shylock the professional moneylender gives one of the most interesting speeches in the play. He feels Antonio (the Merchant of Venice, who does not charge interest when loaning money) has disgraced him, hindered his business, laughed at his losses, mocked his profits, undercut his bargains, turned his friends against him and incited the anger of his enemies. And why? Because Shylock is a Jew, and the Christian world in the Elizabethan period is anti-Semitic." (1)

If you want some useful critical essays, you would do well do consult the ones listed by the_lipsiot (above), especially the one from the Guardian. If you want an off-beat interpretation that insists upon seeing the play from Shylock's point of view, read the chapter on Merchant of Venice in Harold Goddard's The Meaning of Shakespeare (1951) if you can still find that book in your library. For example, Goddard, chair of the English department at Swarthmore for 37 years, calls Shylock "a grain of spiritual gold." Harold Bloom bases much of his interpretation in Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (1999) on Goddard.

Another critic sums up this under-theme of Merchant of Venice: "So why would Shakespeare create a play within a play that brings to light the opposite of what seems to be a conventional Jew-baiting story?One undoubted reason is that Shakespeare is always found to be the champion of the underdog and the enemy of hypocrisy and injustice. What his society during his lifetime was not ready to acknowledge and would have punished in recalcitrants to its narrow vision was fully recognized by the inclusiveness of the poet's embrace in asubtlecriticism of his milieu, awaiting a more enlightened age to recognize it." (2)

Answer 5

There is no consensus on this, and critical attitudes to any antisemitism in the play are at best mixed. This debate is, of course, the result of responses to the character of Shylock. The questions of Shakespeare's attitude to The Jews has been debated since thee time of Nicholas Rowe and from the early 19th century onwards many commentators have seen the play as essentially sympathetic to Shylock: Hazlitt insisted that he was presented as, finally, an object of pity, while Heine remembering an English theatre-goer weeping. "The poor man is wronged! at the end of Act 4 (in Shakespeare Machen und Frauen, 1839) [said] that if Shakespeare had consciously intended Shylock to be a monster his humanity had led him to write a vindication of the Jews. The argument between those who insist that Shakespeare was exposing Christians' hypocrisy rather than attacking Judaism, and those who claim that all Elizabethans were automatically antisemitic and would have found Shylock's torments hilarious continues to this day, though since the early 20th century accounts of Shylock's significance...have been inclined to see him in thematic relation to the play's other outsider, Antonio.

Answer 6

Amazon.com: Merchant of Venice: Books: William Shakespeare,Griffith Hugh
... play, only Antonio is called a "merchant of Venice".) In sum, THE MERCHANT OF ... Shakespeare has often been judged a racist based on his portrayal of Shylock ...www.amazon.com/Merchant-Venice-William-Shakespeare/dp/1559940964 - 137k - Cached - More from this site
Amazon.com: Merchant of Venice (Arden Shakespeare S.): Books: William Shakespeare
... play, only Antonio is called a "merchant of Venice".) In sum, THE MERCHANT OF ... Shakespeare has often been judged a racist based on his portrayal of Shylock ...www.amazon.com/Merchant-Venice-Arden-Shakespeare-S/dp/0415027519 - 149k - Cached - More from this site
Merchant of Venice
... and benevolent, a close reading of the play reveals her as a racist and a snob. ... The Merchant of Venice, it seems, is a comedy gone wrong. ...www.cummingsstudyguides.net/xMerchantof.html

Answer 7

You could also call it: "Is The Merchant of Venice a reflection of the widely held views of it's time?"

Answer 8

Ha ha. I like that. I did Shakespeare to A'Level. JC Tempest R&J and Macbeth. There are plenty of people that have called Bill plenty of 5hit but NEVER racist.

I suppose it is true however. The true genius of his (or Bacons) work is that it is as relevant today as the second it was written so modern concepts should apply to his ancient work.

Nice one. THat will get me thinking all day. Cheers

xxB

Answer 9

If you want some seriously bigoted and hatemongering quotes, I'd suggest looking up the works and speeches of jesse jackson and al sharpton. Everything they say and do is full of hate and bigotry.

Answer 10

Worth noting that ALL Hollywood movies are racist.