Reading: The Merchant of Venice

Host: PseudoErasmus

1. CoHostIrvSnod - May 28, 1997

Have you ever wondered what went on in the mind of the immortal bard of Stratford-on-Avon as he created his words? Well, neither have I. But the Fray's own PseudoErasmus has, and is looking forward to sharing his insights and dismissing yours as we delve into one of Bill Shakespeare's most popular works, The Merchant of Venice.

OK, an introduction is de rigueur. Since the dawn of civilisation, mankind has....oops, sorry, Microsoft Pedantic 97's Bromide Conversion Filter (BCF) is malfunctioning.

Since all that is known about Shakespeare could be contained in a space smaller than Dick Armey's postcard tax return for the flat tax, we are spared the discussion of Shakespeare's views on sex or his attitudes toward his mother. We can really just concentrate on the text and forget about the author.

My friend and thrall, Irving Snodgrass, who under the moniker CoHostIrvSnod has power over life and death of this thread, will summarily delete any post which might:

1) ... argue that The Merchant of Venice is an allegory of exterminationist anti-semitism.

2) ... prescribe Prozac or Haldol for any of the characters in the play.

3) ... speculate about Shakespeare's sexual orientation.

It goes without saying that any poster will be ridiculed and run of the thread, who would use the following words:

metafigural

intertexuality

problematise

aporetic

marginality

PseudoErasmus reserves the right to add or delete words from this Index Verborum without advance notice.

A Bare-Bones Synopsis of the Play

A young bankrupt Venetian nobleman by the name of Bassanio decides to end his profligate ways and seeks, by marrying the wealthy and virtuous Portia of Belmont, to regain his fortune. In order to finance the voyage to Belmont, he asks for a loan from Antonio, the eponymous gentleman merchant of Venice. But since all of Antonio's capital is currently tied up in trading ships abroad, the benefactor himself must borrow the money from Shylock, the bitter and hatefulJewish usurer about town. Antonio and Shylock agree to a contract stipulating that if the money were not repaid within 3 months, Antonio would forfeit a pound of flesh.

After some fairy-tale interludes involving suitors who must pass a silly testin order to be allowed to marry Portia, a flurry of weddings take place. Bassanio and Portia finally wed, and their servants, Gratiano and Nerissa, get married too. The two women give each of their husbands a ring which they are told never to part with. Bassanio's friend Lorenzo, who had eloped with Shylock's daughter Jessica and absconded with most of her father's wealth, then arrives in Belmont and informs Bassanio and Portia that Antonio's ships failed to return on time and that Antonio was now in default. Although Antoniošs many friends offer to pick up the loan for him, Shylock insists on his pound of flesh. Alarmed, Bassanio and Gratiano return to Venice, given more than enough money by Portia to cover Antoniošs debt to Shylock.

Then the fairy tale turns to farce. Portia and Nerissa, though ostensibly retiring to a convent during their husbands' absence, sail secretly to Venice, where Portia puts on a disguise and endeavours to defend Antonio in court. Shylock is adamant about his pound of flesh, and the Duke of Venice, judge at the trial, rules that the sanctity of contract must be observed. Then Portia argues that Shylock must honour the letter of the contract by taking literally a

(cont.)

pound of flesh, not more or less, and that no blood should be spilled. Shylock relents, meekly settling for the original sum, but Portia goes on the attack to demand that Shylock be charged with the crime of planning the murder of a Venetian citizen, a capital offense. The Duke of Venice commutes the sentence, and Shylock is ordered to convert to Christianity and surrender his wealth to Antonio and the Venetian state. But Antonio agrees not to claim his full share, in exchange for Shylock's agreement that he would leave the money to his faithless daughter after his death.

Bassanio offers Antonio's lawyer a large fee, but the lawyer demands only the ring on his finger. Bassano reluctantly gives it up. (Nerissa, disguised as the lawyers' page, demands and gets the other guy's ring.) Bassano and Gratiano return to Belmont, preceded by Portia and Nerissa who welcome them warmly. When Portia "notices" that Bassano isn't wearing his ring, she cruelly taxes him for breaking faith with her. She continues to tease him even after he explains the extenuating circumstances in which he parted with the ring. She eventually confesses that she had been the lawyer all along. There is some happy-go-lucky astonishment, and the playends on a note of totally unbelievable merriment.

Uhhh, which one is played by Heather Locklear again?

MrPseudoErasmus -

Will you be providing us with a preface?

I would like to know what you think is a good recorded version of the play, and what you think the audience should be particularly aware of.

Why did you pick this play?

I deliberately provided this rather stark, even skewed, synopsis in order to show how relatively marginal Shylock really is to The Merchant of Venice. He is basically a plot device which precipitates the series of events with the "surprise ending"; a source of the "problem" that comedies and farces of this type were required by Renaissance convention to present.

Yet Shylock is one of the most famous of Shakespearešs characters. In fact, most people today treat the play as though it had been called "Shylock", just as many people would rather see an imaginary played called "Falstaff", culled from bits of Henry IV 1 & 2 and "The Merry Wives of Windsor". (As far as I know, there is no operanamed after Shylock.) In other words, literary imagination has seized and isolated and aggrandised Shylock as a character in the same way it has done to Satan in Milton's "Paradise Lost". Shylock, like Falstaff and Satan, is now considered more "interesting" and memorable than the story in which he is encased, exploding out of it.

And this view is largely the doing of the Romantics. Their veneration of Shakespeare and the political sensibilities of the time precluded the possibility of an anti-semitic play. For William Hazlitt, the Romantic essayist, Shylocked symbolised the victims of religious intolerance and Christian persecution. The play illustrated, according to the German poet Heinrich Heine, the human tendency to divide people up into groups and create enemies to hate. And in order for these interpetations to be possible, the play could no longer be a comedy in which a cruel and venal money-lending Jew wants to flay a dignified Renaissance gentleman.

(Cont.)

The play had to be recast as a tragedy, whose center lay in Shylock's "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech.

The conflict between the "anti-Shylock" and "pro-Shylock" interpretations calls into question what the play is really intended to do or actually does. Is it a frothy comedy with elements of romance? In that case, Portia is really the center of the play. Or should we ignore the structural evidence of the play and focus on the "buried" tragedyof the pathetic Shylock? I happen to think that if Shylock is arbitrarily made the focus of the play, contrary to what I think the evidence suggests, then "The Merchant of Venice" becomes a superior work of art, a greater achievement in representation. But I think we must avoid the romantic simplism of Shylock as victim. It is in his venality that the primary interest lies.

Any way, these are all preliminaries to discussion. I will be doing the following in the next few weeks:

- Act by act summaries

- a brief performance history of the Merchant of Venice

- a brief of history of Merchant of Venice criticism since the 17th century

- the biblical allusions and resonances of the play

- the problem of genre and the problem of representation

I will try to encourage everyone to take sides in an interpretive war.

Merchant of Venice

Only the Austrailians would have enough culture to provide a net copy of the play. The British shipped them to Botany Bay because they were too much competition at home.

PseudoErasmus, something has struck me about this play. I'm not saying that Shakespeare is long on plot, ever, but does this play seem even more cobbled together than usual? Jessica and Lorenzo just sort of disappear, except for being used as an excuse for Antonio to be noble and as housesitters for Portia..

To see just how vivid the characterization of Shylock is, one need only compare 'Merchant' with a play from the same time period, Marlowe's 'The Jew of Malta'. While there are some surface similarities between Shylock and Marlowe's Barabas, (Shylock's vindictiveness, wealth, and only daughter, for example), Shakespeare did not turn Shylock into the inhuman monster that was Barabas. Without whitewashing Shylock, who *was* capable of monstrous acts, we can also see that Shylock's bitterness and grievanceshad a solid foundation and that Antonio, far from being a helpless victim, was an arrogant prig sure of his own moral superiority over Shylock.

What I like most about this play is the way the characters are presented as fully human, and not some idealized figures. While 'Merchant' may not be considered one of Shakespeare's finest plays, the elements of drama and comedy are juxtaposed to very good effect.

I too found Shakespeare a bit sympathetic to Shylock(almost human when he mentioned his wife gave him the ring that Jessica stole, even with all the greed attached to it). Perhaps because Shakespeare was a little outside society? OOOPs sorry, not supposed to mention that...

QB, I think it had more to do with Shakespeare's penchant for giving all main characters, and many minor ones, a self-legitimizing* point of view. So he made Shylock see himself as more than his detractors would have him be.

*no, I'm not sure if that's a word, but you know what I mean!

In Marlowe's play, which was first performed in 1591, Barabas is a very wealthy Jewish merchant who lives on the Mediterranean island of Malta. Like Shylock, Barabas has an only daughter who is in love with a Christian. Barabas also has a rational motivefor hating Christian society. In the play,he is angered by the passage of a law requiring all Jews to either convert to Christianity or give up one half of their wealth. Nevertheless, Barabas is a thoroughly evil character. Barabas possesses great wealthand uses it in such a manner as to make him more powerful than kings. He commits crimes for revenge, because he hates Christians as such, and hates especially the men who have taken his gold. He resorts to murder and treason to gain his revenge and enjoys watching the pain and suffering he has caused.

In 1594 the Queen's personal physician Roderigo Lopez, a Portuguese Jew, was tried and executed for treason. The Lopez case inspired a wave of anti-Jewish feeling, and was probably responsible for the appearance of several dramas dealing with Jewish characters, including a revival of The Jew of Malta.

Godlessclif

There is a superior online text of all Shakespeare's plays on the website of that noted Australian university MIT.

Merchant of venice

O.K. Venice california has the play on the web too.

Clif, the following lines from 'Merchant' (Act III, Scene ii) are thought to refer to the Lopez case:

Gratiano to Shylock:

Thou almost makest me waver in my faith,

To hold opinion with Pythagoras

That souls of animals infuse themselves

Into the trunks of men. Thy currish spirit

Governed a wolf who, hanged for human slaughter,

Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,

And whilst thou lay'st in thy unhallowed dam

Infused itself in thee, for thy desires

Are wolvish, bloody, starved, and ravenous.

Lopez was sometimes called Lopus (wolf) by contemporaries.

It is true,and certainly Lopez did nothing for the image of Jews in his country. I think a lot of the seeming sympathy simply was that Shakespeare almost couldn't bear to make a major character completely one-dimensional....

That's just it, Bev; as PseudoErasmus says, Shylock is really no more than a plot device, not a major character. What Shakespeare has done is make him so *alive* that he overshadows everyone else, even Portia, and literally steals the show. What's interesting is how such a relatively minor character can eclipse the others to the extent Shylock does, to the point where conventional wisdom casts him as the focus of the play.

How is it that he is a minor character? Antonio barely appears. I think perhaps the Merchant of Venice was a device for Shylock...Shylock overshadows all because he's the only fully developed character(outside of Portia) and because Shakespeare spent themost time on him in the play.

I don't have much time today, so I will leave a few brief comments on some of the posts here.

QUEENBEVERLY - Re: Message #10

On the contrary, I think most of Shakespeare's plays are quite plotty, and his comedies are full of crinkum-crankum movements in story line. But I do agree that the plot of _The Merchant of Venice_ is cobbled together, contrived even. But let's face it - much of the story is pretty absurd. There are conventional and generical reasons Shakespeare uses some ofthese plot lines, like fake / mistaken identities and the "surprise" ending. I will expatiate on these later on.

The elopement of Jessica and Lorenzo is a plot device, designed to "explain" Shylock's increasing bitterness about his lot and eagerness to get Antonio's pound of flesh.

Notice that in some ways, Shylock is himself a mere plot device. In fact, I would argue that Shakespeare probably began writing the character of Shylock in order to serve a purpose no more essential or central than Dogberry's in _Much Ado About Nothing_ (another play with a famously contrived plot). Though definitely a minor character, Dogberry made the entire plot possible by delaying the discovery of the deception to which Hero falls victim. Likewise, Shylock, who doesn't even appear in the 5th act and relatively seldom seen in the play, is the device that allows Portia to masquerade as a lawyer and play a jocund test of faith on her husband.

Yet, Shylock is overwritten for this merely structural purpose. Unlike Dogberry, he has too much individual life, too much representational reality, to be passed off as a device, even though the play is most forcefully not about him. I suppose Shakespeare was chafing at the constraints of Renaissance conventions imposed on him.

I didn't mean to say that the play was really *about* Shylock...I spoke too quickly*smile* but he is *not* a minor character, whatever Shakespeare's intent.. Perhaps because he used Marlowe's Barabbas as a starting point he has more *information* about Shylock. These things happen. And even the best playwright can end up trying to stick too many formulas into a plot..

Traditionally, most interpretations of _The Merchant of Venice_ can be divided into two kinds. The one reduces Shylock to his structural purpose and squarely considers him only a part of a larger, complicated action inside the romantic comedy. The other sentimentalises Shylock, sees the part as greater than the whole and discerns, nay, invents a tragedy. The first is unsatisfying because we feel that his vividness confers on Shylock a larger place. Yet the second is a willful misreading viable only by disregarding the facts of the text. I'm not sure if the "pro-Shylock" interpretation can really be rescued simply by pointing out that the play shows us a "warts-all" view of the character. Is it possible arrive at an interpretation which achieves a balance? One which acknowledges that Shylock is a subordinate role yet a critical part of the play's meaning? Or is the play a union of irreconcilable parts? We must try to answer the question first by trying to see who and what Portia and Antonio are.

MARIA GLEASON - Re: Message #11

"...we can also see that Shylock's bitterness and grievances had a solid foundation and that Antonio, far from being a helpless victim, was an arrogant prig sure of his own moral superiority over Shylock."

I'm not sure I can agree. You may notice that that part of Antonio's personality which we should like to condemn - the sanctimonious hostility toward Shylock the Jewish usurer - is conveyed to us almost entirely from Shylock's point of view. We know only from Shylock's words that Antonio spat on him and kicked him in public. I'm not suggesting that Shylock is supposed to be lying or exaggerating, only that it is significant that Antonio is never seen doing anything particularly odious. In fact, Antonio is portrayed as ever gentle and unfailingly kind, the model of a Renaissance gentleman. He is even merciful toward Shylock at the end.

plotty? PseudoErasmus!

Yes, he is gentlemanly even to the point of bowing to Shylock's right to his flesh....

A flighty comparison: _The Merchant of Venice_ combines the structural oddities of _Much Ado About Nothing_ and Molière's _Tartuffe_.

In Much Ado, what most of us today find compelling is the amorous sparring between Beatrice and Benedick, which is a subplot, the minor strand of the play. The major story line, the farce of mistaken identity, is pretty uninteresting.

_Tartuffe_, on the other hand, is like _Merchant_ in that it's not really about the title character, who doesn't even show up until the 3rd act. Orgon is the person to whom the most happens and who is the most changed.

Portia is an interesting character as well. Shakespeare seems to make his women very intelligent and often more resourceful than his male characters(Ophelia excepted...and perhaps Juliet as well).

Could the resourcefulness of women have been a way of bowing to the Queen?

Maria in Message #20 has it right. Shylock, like Falstaff or the Wife of Bath or Milton's Satan, has acquired through sheer success of representation a life of his own, quite apart from the play.

Nicholas Rowe, an 18th century editor of Shakespeare, was the first to argue that M of V was designed as tragedy: "There appears in [the play] such a deadly spirit of revenge, such a savage fierceness and fellness, and such a bloody designation of cruelty and mischief which cannot agree either with the stile or characters of comedy." [Source: Margreta DeGrazia, _Shakespeare in the 18th Century_; pace Droll Roll] But the idea that Shylock was the major character, even the center of the play, becomes conventional only with the Romantics, who also made Satan the hero of _Paradise Lost_. (Interestingly, C. S. Lewis dissented from the now conventionalised romantic interpretations of both M of V and PL.) And of course, experience in the 20th century has made us uneasy about how to "deal" with Shylock.

What do you mean by success of representation? I am curious...

I have never seen the MofV performed, I've only read it. Even on the printed page Shylock comes across as more important to Shakespeare than his place in the play warrants...but, as I said, the plot of this play makes it hard to figure out who is intended to be important...

QueenBeverly - Re: Message #31

All I meant by "success of representation" is that the character is vividly drawn. You're quite right "the plot of this play makes it hard to figure out who is intended to be important..." There is another play with which M of V shares a "problem": _Julius Caesar_. We really can't decide who or what either play should really about.

I have to disagree with Maria who implied that Marlowe's Barabas is less interesting a portrayal than Shylock. True, Marlowe's Jew is one-dimentionally, relentless awful, but unlike the Christians and the others Jews in the play who are equally reprehensible, Barabas revels in his own sublime evil. B. is almost a "Miltonic" character.

Thank you for clarifying the term PseudoErasmus. I still wonder if he wasn't so vividly drawn because S. had the model of Barabbas before him? However, Shakespeare obviously wasn't content to leave Marlowe's character alone...

Great beginning PseudoErasmus,

A few minor questions, then some substance:

Msg #3 you describe Bassanio as "profligate" and Antonio as "eponymous". Profligate is a little exreme; I don't think we ever see him as a wild playboy, just as a man who has fallen in love and(true to the dictates expressed in the Sonnetts)wishes to marry and reproduce. I don't get "eponymous". Antonio is virtuos in that he gives selfless friendship to Bassanio -- he is willing to chance his life that Bassanio may have funds to pursue his wooing of Portia. Male friendship was, for the Elizabethans, the purest and most disinterested of relationships.

Msg #7: I agree that the fact that Shylock is Jewish is not central. The Romantic view that Shylock was presented in an ugly light does not make this an anti-Sematic tragedy. by the same reasoning Macbeth would be anti-Caladonian and Richard III anti-monarchalist. Shylocks true dramatic function lies in the fact that he is a userer and believes in the legalistic principle of an eye-for-an-eye. His hatred of Antonio derives less from the indignaties visited upon him by the Christians than from the inteference with the profits of his usury. And Shylocks famous self-defense is not a defense of his race but of the principle of revenge (87.55-69).

But Shylock is not merely a structural device and is central to the message of the play. Shylock's insistance on adherence to the strict performance of his cruel bond is analogous to strict adherence to the letter of the law, the "old" law of the Old Testament. the "new law", promulgated by the commentators on the New Testament, give primacy to the spirit behind the letter, for "in the course of justice, none of us/ Should see salvation" (116.198-99). In simplest terms, Shylock represents the dramatic force of the old law in contrast to the new, represented by Portia, and it is a pleasing comic irony that the new law triumphs

(continued)

In simplest terms, Shylock represents the dramatic force of the old law in contrast to the new, represented by Portia, and it is a pleasing comic irony that the new law triumphs finally by threatening Shylock with with the legal consequences of the strict performance of his own bond.

The action of The Merchant of Venice, then, is constructed on an allegorical basis, a conflict of values of utmost familiarity to the audience. But the play itself is not an allegory.

The action of the play reaches its climax in IV.i, with the confrontation of Portia and Shylock both as persons of the plot and as forces they embody. The following scheme is one way of representing this confrontation:

Shylock embodires the world of Venice

portia embodies the world of Belmont

based on Shylock = the letter of the law; Portia = the spirit of the law

as exemplified in Shylock and the trial of Antonio's bond; Potia and the trial of the caskets

made possible by Shylock = the old law; Portia = the new law

motivated by Shylock = revenge; Portia = charity (mercy)

ending in Shylock = capitulation :; Portia = harmony

Is it possible to wander a little here and investigate Lear. I would very much like to know "Sir" PseudoErasmus’ views on Tolstoy's brutal exegesis on Shakespeare, specifically his problems with Lear. My own feeling is that Tolstoy saw in Lear acharacter a little too close to home. Be that as it may, it would be interesting to hear a view on the broader matter of Shakespeare and that ill-tempered little Russian genius.

And this shows that the "silly" test of the caskets isn't so silly after all. It has an important symbolic meaning and function in the play.

PseudoErasmus, I stand by my representation of Antonio as an arrogant prig. He may have been a model Renaissance gentleman, but to his peers, not Shylock. In Act I, Scene iii, we see the following exchange between Antonio and Shylock:

Shylock: ...Shall I bend low and in a bondsman's key

With bated breath and whispering humbleness,

Say this ---

"Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last,

You spurned me such a day, another time

You called me dog, and for these courtesies

I'll lend you thus much moneys"?

Antonio: I am as like to call thee so again,

To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too.

I'm not an apologist for Shylock, but Antonio does not do himself proud in this exchange.

Regarding Marlowe's Barabas, I didn't mean to imply he was less interesting than Shylock, only that he was less rounded. I agree that Barabas is almost 'Miltonic' in his monstrosity by virtue of the delight he takes in his behavior, but to me he is lessbelievable as a character because he is too broadly drawn. (I do love the way he poisons an entire nunnery, though.)

PD

Well, Philip David has completely made unnecessary my next post, which was to *suggest*, not detail as PD has done, an allegorical Portia-Shylock dichotomy. This would have worked toward the solution to the problem outlined in the first part of Message #24.

OK, the thread is now finished. Hahahaha.

PD, Antonio is the 'eponymous gentleman merchant of Venice' because he gives the play its name.

The two different locals, Venice and Belmont, are symbolic more than geographic. Venice is the world of commercial exchange; its sole concern is with material things : argosies, ducats, and the most extreme manifestation of the Venetian world is Shylock's bargain : a pound of flesh ( a man's life) for his three thousand ducats.

Belmont is a world of very different values. It is a world of love and charity and, in the last act, harmony. It is a world where Jessica and Lorenzo find a shelter from the harshness of Venice. It is a world where the fortune seeker, Bassanio, is easily converted by his love for the genius of the place to "choose not by the view" (94.131).

Portia then embodies the values of Belmont and Shylock embodies the values of Venice.

Gosh, I feel like a cad now for jumping the gun.

Maria,

uh, duh; I am so slow on the uptake sometimes.

PD - The synopsis of the play I gave, which contained the characterisation of the three caskets test as "silly", was meant to present a deliberately skewed view of the play, one to oppose the conventional "pro-Shylock" conception.

One thing that bothered me about the allegorical dichotomy of Portia and Shylock is Portia's treatment of him in the end. She doesn't come off as merciful at all. She takes everything Shylock has and is willing to leave him broke, high and dry as it were, without his daughter, without any money, without any dignity, any way to make a living....she totally destroys him. It is only Antonio's charity that saves Shylock from complete and utter disaster brought down on him most unmercifully from Portia.

The little game with the rings also seems to take some of the virtuous , merciful, charitable luster off of Portia too. I have actually seen a production that made me more sympathetic toward Shylock than Portia. It is possible to play her as a bitch.

PD - You didn't do anything wrong. Your interpretation is excellent. I had hoped to more slowly draw out an interpretation which would reconcile or transcend the two schools of M of V interpretations.

The sheme with the allegorical dichotomy of Shylock and Portia fails to account for some of the most attractive secondary elements of the drama: Jessica and Lorenzo; Gratanio and Nerrissa; and the Gobbos. Each of these characters compliments the central action in a (peculiarly?)Shakespearean way. (Beverly, Message #10 they are not just "cobbled" in).

It was Shakespeare's particular delight to reinforce the theme of romantic wooing by a man of a maiden by doubling or tripling the love chase. I think of Valentine and Sylvia, Proteus and Julia in Two Gentlemen of Verona; and of Orlando and Rosalind, Silvius and Phebe, Touchstone and Audrey in As You Like It; Benedict and Beatrice, Claudius and Hero in Much Ado About Nothing. But it is Shakespeare's way, however, that the secondary and tertiary couples be not simple echoes of the hero and heroine.

I think Phillip David is doing an excellent job! He should really take over this thread. How about it, PD?

PD-I stand by my statement. I've read a lot of Shakespeare and I love his subplots and secondary characters. In this case, though, none of the secondary characters is very well developed. The whole play gives a sense of rushing through the exposition.

BTW-I've always thought Portia was a bitchy sort....

Regarding the secondary characters: ( Queen beverly Message #10

The force of love rescues Jessica from the tyranny of her father's house (Shylock), close-shuttered, barren of art or music. She is borne away to Belmont by a group of masquers in gay disguises, accompanied by music, and is last glimpsed with her husband under a starry sky enveloped in a "concord of sweet sounds"(130.84).

The Jessica-Lorenzo action makes a succinct statement of the conventional romantic theme,which has been complicated in the main action by the interwoven and perhaps weightier story of the bond. There is, moreover, a foreshadowing of the outcome of the bond action in Jessica's elopement. As she leaves her father's house she takes with her a casket of his gold and jewels to bestow upon her Christian lover. So, at the conclusion of the trial, Shylock is to be stripped of his possssions for the benefit of Antonio and the state of Venice.

Grattanio and Nerrissa provide a variation on the theme. Nerrissa is only sketched: the shadow of her mistress, witty enough and wise enough to respond to a cue with the appropriate answer, and to play skillfully the game whose rules are established by Portia. Gratanio, however, was an early draft of a character Shakespeare was to develop into a unique figure: Touchstone, Feste, Lear's Fool, the "chorus character" whose foolish or glib wit is a trenchant commentary on the action. "Let me play the fool!" Gratanio cries on his first entrance (44.79) and declares that the material world should not be taken too seriously. In a later speech (74.8-19) he makes a memorable development of the familiar theme of the vanity of the worldly pleasures. He must not, however, be mistaken for a solem moralist; he is not altogether sage. With a couple of midly risque puns, he retains his membership in the young-men-about-San Marco ( or the Mermaid tavern) and sustains the high-hearted tone of the play.

The G

Continued:

The Gobbos, in transferring their service from Shylock to Basanio, ring another change upon the theme. It is easy to dismiss Lancelot ( simply "The Clown" at his first entrance) as the necessary role for the company's low comedian, provided with obscure foolery and irrelevant business to amuse the groundlings. His speeches are often difficult-- and with his blind father, brutal!-- yet, they too, grow out of the relation of surface appearances to inner reality, the letter as opposed to the spirit, which is the unifying idea of the total action. " It is a wise father that knows his own child" (63.76-77) is a most familiar proverb, and II.ii is a comic metaphor reminding the spectator that any man may be "sand blind" (74), be he Shylock in Venice or the Prince of Morrocco in Belmont; the very structure of the play, with the Prince departing to make his choice as the Gobbos perform their turn of deception-perception, confirms their relevance.

Wow, PseudoErasmus --

Great job so far. I had feared you would run on-and-on and on, page after screedy page. But, no. You are the perfect instigator, director, hinter and whisperer, challenger and foil, victim (PD, ha!) and valiant leader.

Congrats, I applaud your creation.

Conflict between the old and new law, yes. And between the literal and the understood; denotation and connotation. Between surface meaning and what is below. The implied and the stated.

Two other things.

The play, in my opinion, is about the gap between stated attitudes and actual attitudes. Not simply hypocrisy, something different. What we might call "lip service" today, as opposed to earnestly felt belief. A jarring gap separating statements and conduct.

Second, the play, in my opinion, is fundamentally concerned with dissonance. So much so that the work violates dramatic unity, leaving us unclear about the focus of the play. We are given information about characters that is contradictory, conclusions that don't match predicates, and so forth.

Did they have consciousness altering drugs in the 16th century? Maybe Shakespeare was experimenting with drugs when he wrote MV. Oops! Was that on the bad-idea list, PseudoErasmus?

BOMBOLURINA

There are many performances of _The Merchant of Venice_ on audio- and videocassette, including one with Peter O'Toole as Shylock. I will retrieve the full references for you later. As for your other question, I didn't choose the play; I only acquiesced to the decision of the fraygrants in the Book thread.

SOCKO

I really don't know too much about Tolstoy's views on Shakespeare. They are, after all, the views of eccentric, cranky old age, when he also began condemning his own novels. All I know about the subject comes from Orwell's defense of Shakespeare in his essay, "Tolstoy, Lear and the Fool".

PseudoErasmus, the way you're weaving the thread is outstanding. Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos had better look to their laurels.

Anti-sematism in Cantebury tales.

His felawe taughte hym homward prively,

[545] Fro day to day, til he koude it by rote,

And thanne he song it wel and boldely,

Fro word to word, acordynge with the note.

Twies a day it passed thurgh histhrote,

To scoleward and homward whan he wente;

[550] On Cristes mooder set was his entente.

As I have seyd, thurghout the Juerie

This litel child, as he cam to and fro,

Ful murily than wolde he synge and crie

O Alma redemptoriseveremo.

[555] The swetnesse his herte perced so

Of Cristes mooder that, to hire to preye,

He kan nat stynte of syngyng by the weye.

Oure firste foo, the serpent Sathanas,

That hath in Jues herte his waspes nest,

[560] Up swal, and seide, "O Hebrayk peple, allas!

Is this to yow a thyng that is honest,

That swich a boy shal walken as hym lest

In youre despit, and synge of swich sentence,

Which is agayn youre lawes reverence?"

[565] Fro thennes forth the Jues han conspired

This innocent out of this world to chace.

An homycide therto han they hyred,

That in an aleye hadde a privee place;

And as the child gan forby for to pace,

[570] This cursed Jew hym hente, and heeld hym faste,

And kittehis throte, and in a pit hym caste.[Riv., p. 211]

I seye that in a wardrobe they hym threwe

here as thise Jewes purgen hire entraille.

O cursed folk of Herodes al newe,

[575] What may youre yvel entente yow availle?

ordre wol out, certeyn, it wol nat faille,

And namely ther th'onour of God shal sprede;

The blood out crieth on youre cursed dede.

The prioresses Tale

As I understand it the plays in the Folios were cobbled together from various, sometimes different and sometimes incomplete, versions of the plays. The 'cobbled together' feel of MoV may reflect on the incompleteness of the preservation job that was done.

The above post was in response to QB's posts including Message #51

As far as Portia being a 'bitchy sort' (Message #52) I'd point out that it is a romantic comedy which is why Antonio is a bit of a jerk and she tries to make him a betterperson*. He has it all but is flawed and she saves him, hence the romantic part. The characters are both three dimensional and mechanistic as was said earlier.

* Feminism not being in vogue at the time.

My understanding of Elizabethan drama on stage doesn't mesh with the "cobbled together" comment.

Merchant of Venice appears in modern versions in a classical five-act formula. But, act divisions were introduced ( I believe) by the editors of the first Folio; they do not appear in the First Quarto. I believe also that there were few breaks in the action in a Shakespearean play. One set of actors had hardley left the stage before another set bustled on to maintain the action's relentless progress. In this way an Elizabethan performance was more like a feature film than what we are used to seing in the theater. Through an unbroken succession of scenes the structural principle of juxtaposition can make a big effect.

It also follows the standard formula of rising action, climax, and falling action. The first unit is Antonio's bond and Bassanio's election which culminate with Act II, scene vi. The climax, encompassing the two major trials, concludes with Act IV, scene ii. The final unitis Act V, the reunion in Belmont with the harmony of the spheres echoing the harmony of the earthly characters. If it was cobbled together then it was masterfully done because every scene has its place and purpose in the normal sequence of action and every character has an important function to play ( except for maybe Salerio and Salanio in the opening scene).

While I agree that the plot of M of V is contrived, I think that it is at the same time tightly woven. Think about all that occurs in Scene I: we meet Antonio (who has a sense of foreboding), Bassanio (whom we find out longs for Portia), Portia herself(and the conditions of her father's will), and finally Shylock, in Act iii, where the pace really picks up. We discern the basic characters of both Antonio and Shylock and the scene ends with Antonio's second foreboding, this time that Shylock will somehow get his pound of flesh.

The next act contains ten short scenes that show us how the fortunes of the principal characters progress, with a growing sense of doom. From there we take a leisurely detour through the romantic action of the play, only to be confounded by the sudden reversal of fortune that we have been dreading, Shylock's trial against Antonio. It is amazing to realize just how short and effective Portia's 'quality of mercy' speech really is, and the trial is still exciting even though the outcome is not in any doubt. The final scene returns us to the lovers and the 'all's well that ends well' ending that we expect.

The development of secondary characters is certainly not a consideration in M of V, and it also lacks the depth of the greater comedies, but it is a good bridge between the ornate stand-alone speeches of the plays that came before and the later plays, where even the most poetic of speeches are used to advance the action.

PD, we cross-posted, sorry about that.

well, as my husband says...even Neil Simon had a bad play or two*puckish grin* ...I do *not* find this play to hang like *any* of the others....It is way too short. Perhaps Godless is right and we didn't get the whole play from the preservationists....

The speeches, or words, _are_ the action in Merchant of Venice. Shylock's speech, Portia's speech, and even Gobbo's malaproptic (?) musings associate themselves with the play's concerns with appearance and reality, mask and face, outward show and inward fact, letter and spirit. The words used to advance the actions of the plot are mostly given to the most inconsequential and least developed parts , Salario and Salanio.

Re: PseudoErasmus's post #56 -

Thank you so much, PseudoErasmus, for the references and for putting together this wonderful exploration of the Merchant of Venice. It's an absolute treat to sit back and listen to you and the rest of the Fraygrants examine and discuss the nuances of this play.

My lack of training in the language makes reading the play difficult work, but with guidance from this discussion and a good recorded version, I can see I will gain a lot from the experience.

I've never liked Portia much. She always seems too perfect to me. She never does anything wrong (except being REALLY tough on Shylock), and I don't really feel she develops much in the play. She starts off being right, and by golly she's still right at the end. She's a bit of a prig, really. And so is Antonio.

Now I will go and reread the play (haven't for 20 yrs) and be embarrassed at how bad my memory is.

I have to agree with bombolurina. Khan, you may be a gelded goldfish, but you're an extremely impressive gelded goldfish. Your commentary is fresh, witty and knowing -- and I don't particularly even like Francis Bacon all that much.

Synopsis of Act I, Scene 1

On a street in Venice, Antonio is explaining to his friends Salerio and Solanio that he is stricken with a "want-wit sadness", some kind of anxiety and general debilitation of the soul whose reason he can't fathom. His friends suggest in elaborate and conceited language that Antonio must be worried about the fate of the ships abroad carrying the merchandise in which his entire capital is staked. Antonio denies this, reassuring his friends that he hadn't entrusted his wealth in a single ship. Then Solanio guesses that the cause of Antonio's melancholy, if not business, then must be love. When Antonio yet again denies this explanation, Solanio defaults to platitude: it's just one of those mysterious things ofnature.

Then three more friends of Antonio's - Bassanio, Lorenzo, and Gratiano - take over the task of trying to cheer him up. Gratiano chides him for fixing too much attention on wordly matters. Antonio's reply is a typically Shakespearean device of inserting a gnomic utterance, almost a sententious maxim: "I hold the world as but the world.../ A stage where every man must play a part." And Antonio's part happens to be one of melancholy and contemplation. Gratiano counters that he would rather play the part of fool, always joking and jovial. By criticising those who affect gravity and profundity by keeping silent, he also gently insinuates that Antonio may be faking his foul humour. Lorenzo, interjecting, jokes that he must be quite the charlatan since he hasn't been able to put in a single word edgewise in the presence of the garrulous Gratiano. After Antonio offers to be more sociable, Gratiano commends him for his effort and pronounces that silence is befitting only for a dried ox's tongue and an unmarrigeable girl.

Synopsis of Act I, Scene 1 (continued)

All but two leave the scene, and Antonio asks Bassanio to explain about the lady to whom he "swore a secret pilgrimmage". Instead of replying, Bassanio bewails the state of his finances, embarassedby debts incurred and fortunes squandered while he lived beyond his means. Deeply distressed because his debt is owed largely to Antonio, a good friend and kinsman, Bassanio has come up with a scheme to win a new fortune and repay his debts. When Antonio offers his full cooperation and services, Bassanio once again fails to respond directly and lapses into a conceit about an arrow. Essentially, he wants to borrow more money from Antonio in order to finance the expedition to Belmont, where a lady of great beauty and virtue, Portia. Bassanio had met her a while back her and received from "fair speechless messages" indicating that she would welcome his suit. Thus, given this nod, he has a tremendous advantage over the many suitors who flock to Belmont for her prize. Antonio, the generous friend and gentleman that he is, insists that he would be more wronged if his desire to do utmost to help a friend were doubted than if his friend squandered all his wealth. But Antonio has no capital at the moment, having invested everything in his merchant ships. So he himself will borrow the funds on Bassanio's behalf, or "co-sign" the loan.

Some observations about about Act I, Scene 1

1) This play fixes Antonio's character as basically grave, pensive, sullen, taciturn, but also generous and even idealistic about friendship. And this last is important. What is central in the first scene of the play is *friendship*, what in the Renaissance amounted to a cult, an important branch of love. You have a pretty large contingent of friends trying to cheer up Antonio; we learn by the scene's end how much he values and idealises friendship.One wonders, was Bassanio made to beat around the bush for so long before he asks Antonio for the favour, just so that Antonio could seem zealous about fulfilling the obligations of friendship? So that Antonio could profess his "theory" of friendship?

2) "A stage where every man must play a part", something Antonio says, is the reason for his gravity. The world is a testing place for the soul, a place where man is measured, so to speak.

3) Gratiano in one way acts likea typical Shakespearen fool: an agent of (situational) irony. Antonio is silent and serious, and Gratiano talkative and frivolous, but the wisdom doesn't spare Antonio the famous predicament later on. Gratiano's rather rude remarks about old men who affect wisdom through silence conform to Johnson's definition of satire: "[a poem] in which wickedness or folly is censured".

4) That the play is a comedy, is established in this scene. Witness Lorenzo's quip, Solanio's comic tautology and Gratiano's brusque wit. Moreover, the scene contrasts the effusive geniality of the minor characters with Antonio's inexplicable melancholy.

5) Salerio's and Solanio's lush language is the sign of Venice's mercantile exuberance and grandeur. Maybe fodder for PD's assertion that Venice and Belmont are to be contrasted as types.

Some observations about about Act I, Scene 1 (continued)

6) I have always thought that Salerio's second speech (22-40) is a bizarre and comical precursor to the madeleine in Proust, when Marcel dips the rusk in the tea. "The wind cooling my broth / Would blow me to an ague when I thought / What harm a wind too great might do at sea."

7) PD didn't like my use of "profligate" to describe Bassanio's past behaviour, but it is perfectly apt, especially in light of the Prodigal Son motif. Remember that sheerly in terms of genre and mythical significance, the action of the play is a "quest" --- Bassanio's quest to reestablish that which for us in the 20th century might seem a matter of mere financial solvency but which for him must have been something more important. Personal and spiritual solvency, perhaps. This aspect of the play, which in my opinion is not properly or clearly developed, is a major complication for any possible interpretation, including PD's excellent one. It elevates Bassanio's place in the play in competition with Portia's and Shylock's and messes up many neat generalisations we might make of it. This is something I will return to later on.

Synopsis of Act I, Scene 2

In Belmont, Portia, the object of Bassanio's quest, and Nerissa, her lady-in-waiting, are chatting casually. Portia claims that she is growing weary of the world, but Nerissa counters that she would be justified in her weariness only if her "miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunes are". Then the waiting woman fires a battery of maxims, the gist of which is that the ideal in all things is the mean between two extremes. Praising this counsel,Portia nonetheless laments that it is easier to know what the good is to do, than to actually do the good. Having the knowledge of how to be happy, doesn't guarantee one happiness, and she is, she says, quite unhappy. For she chafes at the restrictionson her choice of husband placed by her dead father. According to his will, suitors for her hand must choose which of three caskets contains her picture. Nerissa reassures her that her father must have designed this "lottery" in such a way that only the worthy men would pick the correct casket.

The scene turns comic when Nerissa goes through the list of the suitors and Portia comments disparagingly on them. An example of Portia's wit: when Nerissa asks what of a certain Monsieur LeBon,she replies: "God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man." Nerissa then comforts her with the news that she doesn't have to marry any of these ghastly suitors, since they have all been turned off by the condition of the contest (which is explained in a later scene). Nerissa then asks whether Portia remembers a certain scholar and soldier from Venice who visited Belmont while her father was still alive and who, in the maid's opinion, was the worthiest of the suitors. Porties replies that she does, and she remebers the name, Bassanio, who seemed quite worthy of the praise. A messenger arrives to inform Portia that the Prince of Morrocco will arrive shortly as a new suitor.

Some observations about about Act I, Scene 2

1) The power of PD's assertion earlier that "through an unbroken succession of scenes the structural principle of juxtaposition can make a big effect" is demonstrated in this scene. One of the first things anyone should notice about Act I Scene 2 is that it deals yet again partly with *unhappiness* - this time Portia's. But in contrast with Antonio's lack of self-knowledge about the cause of his own melancholy, Portia is fully aware of why she is sad. The reason isn't important, but the juxtaposition is. Whereas Antonio, despite being the eponym for the play, is basically a passive character, Portia is one of its motors.

2) People have talked about minor characters. Well, Nerissa is a very standard dramatic device, the archetypical maid-adviser, a proto-Jeeves. Here, she's a realist foil to Portia's idealist. The maxims she utters almost chidingly to Portia are the workings of an uproariously commensical mind.

3) Notice also that this scene is in prose, in contrast to the previous scene. I was told at school that in Shakespeare whereas verse was for "high" and "noble", prose was for "low" and "comic" moments. I don't think this is consistently true in Shakespeare's plays, but the distinction fits here.

4) The Three Caskets, like the Ring motif, is something Shakespeare drew from the well of devices which held mythopoeic resonances for the Renaissance audience. Definitely something to be discussed at length later on.

Synopsis of Act I, Scene 3

Back in Venice, the scene opens in medias res. Bassanio had already asked Shylock for a loan of 3000 ducats, for a term of 3 months, to be backed by Antonio's credit. Shylock opines that Antonio is a good man, a remarkBassanio misinterprets in two ways. First, the virtuous Renaissance gentleman that he is, Bassanio naturally takes the meaning of "good" in the ethical sense. And secondly, Bassanio apparently thinks that the remark was sarcastic. But Shylock explains that by "good" he meant only that Antonio was solvent. He may have all his capital staked on the high seas, but he's nonetheless solvent. When Bassanio invites Shylock to dine with him and Antonio, Shylock disdainfully replies that while he would do business with Christians, he refuses to eat or drink with them.

When Antonio enters the scene, Shylock bares himself to the audience in an aside. Comparing him to a humble innkeeper, Shylock says he hates Antonio because he is a Christian. Then he goes on to list his grievances. Antonio's generous interest-free lending lowers the market rate of interest; he denounced Shylock's usury in front of the city's merchants; and above all he has humiliated Shylock publicly. For all this, Shylock vows revenge, if the opportunity arises.

Antonio cuts to the chase: for Bassanio's sake he is breaking his custom of neither borrowing nor lending at interest. Then Shylock goes on to justify usury by appealing to the story of Jacob andLaban from the Book of Genesis. Jacob, who sheparded for Laban, was to take the spotted lambs as his wages once the uncle's flocks gave birth and to leave the rest. But as the ewes and the rams mated, Jacob used a magical device to make sure that all the lambs were spotted.

Synopsis of Act I, Scene 3 (continued)

This story Shylock interprets as illustrating the virtue of thrift. Antonio argues that the lambs' spots were the work of God and that this story in no way justifies usury. To which Shylock quips that he will make the money breed as fast as the sheep.

When Antonio returns to ask about the loan, Shylock complains bitterly, why should he lend the product of his thrift so readily to a man who has humiliated him in public, spat on him and called him a dog? Antonio avers proudly that he will likely repeat these acts, and reminds Shylock that profit should be the motive for lending an enemy money. Since usury is contrary to good, it is natural to commit it not against friends but against enemies. Shylock then suddenly does a volte-face and offers to supply the 3000 ducats without interest, in exchange for friendship with Antonio. Bassanio is suspicious of this sudden kindness, but Shylock insists it is in good faith. In proof, Shylock will only ask that Antonio sign a notarised bond stipulating that if the money were not returned within 3 months, he would forfeit a pound of flesh, cut off from wherever on the body he pleases. This proviso Shylock calls a "merry sport", a joke from which he could not possibly profit. Acknowledging the generosity, he reassures the appalled Bassanio that no flesh will be forfeited because he is sure his ships will return with great wealth within 2 months. All is agreed, and after Shylock leaves to retrieve the sum, Antonio declares, "The Hebrew will turn Christian; he grows kind."

Some observations about about Act I, Scene 3

1) Although by this last remark I quoted Antonio probably only meant observe that the Jew was being uncharacteristically kind, it is nonetheless both ironic and prophetic. Obviously, I guess.

2) It's clear early on that Shylock plans revenge, is hypocritically professing kindness and friendship, and is engaging in outright deception. His ability for dissembling is manifest in the contrast between the aside and the desire for friendship.

3) Everything about the rhetoric of this scene is designed to make an audience giddy. The scene begins as a dialogue in *stichomythia*, a rapid exchange of one-liners, between Bassanio and Shylock. Shylock is constantly repeating words and phrases fromBassanio. It's almost like an echo chamber. When Shylock shows some concern about the risks of Antonio's commercial activities, he says, "there be land rats and water rats, water thieves and land thieves - I mean pirates." All this makes thewords both comic and ominous and Shylock a little shifty.

But the most significant repetition is of the word "kind". When Shylock is relating the parable from Genesis, he refers to breeding among the sheep as "doing the deed of kind", wherein "kind" means "natural". And Shylock's gleeful joke about breeding money (92) illuminates his surprising "kind" offer to Antonio in (138). Could the illumination not offer a third meaning, as found in the "repayment in kind"? Revenge? Note also that Antonio considers usury unnatural, hence unkind.

Some observations about about Act I, Scene 3 [continued]

3) [continued] By the way, this kind of pun, where the same word is used to mean different things simultaneously, is called *antanaclasis*. Shylock's repetition of Bassanio's phrases at theopening of the scene is an instance of *anadiplosis*, the repetition of the last word or phrase of one sentence at the beginning of the next. I think the repetition in [rats--pirates] may be *polyptoton*, but I'm not sure.

4) Shylock is portrayedas a highly cautious, suspicious and ruthlessly practical man. For example,

- Shylock seems to already know everything about antonio's commercial activies

- He uses "good" to mean "solvent"

- When he first mentions thathe hates Antonio, it is not because of the humiliation at Antonio's hands, but because of Antonio's practice of Christian generosity and humility and its impact on his profits. (Cf. Shylock's epithet, "fawning publican".)

5) Shylock's mordant wit is on full display here. Besides the money-breeding joke, he calls Antonio's vilification "courtesies". When talking about the computation of interest rates, he uses the word "rate" to mean "berate", a referenceto his humiliation. [The repetition of the same word in two different but not simultaneous senses is *ploce*.] And let's not forget his outburst in 102-125. Dogs have probably never been used for so much sustained sarcasm.

6) My Oxford edition mentions that "feed fat the ancient grudge" (42-43) may have been understood by the Elizabethan audience as a reference to cannibalism. Of course, in the Middle Ages, Jews were often rumoured to be cannibalising Christian children. It is not an implausible gloss on the line, given Shylock's demand for the pound of flesh.

Some observations about about Act I, Scene 3 [continued]

7) The Oxford edition also kindly informs me that "your prophet the Nazarite", by which Shylock refers to Christ, is an epithet used in Matthew 2:23 by Jews who refuse to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah. Clearly, the seed of Phillip David's interpretation that the M of V is an allegory of the conflict between the Old Testament and the NT, is planted here.

8) Shylock is prophetic about the fate of Antonio's ships when he talks about rats and thieves.

PHILLIP DAVID - Re: Message #43

"The two different locals, Venice and Belmont, are symbolic more than geographic. Venice is the world of commercial exchange; its sole concern is with material things : argosies, ducats, and the most extreme manifestation of the Venetian world is Shylock's bargain : a pound of flesh ( a man's life) for his three thousand ducats...."

I think this is too glib a dichotomisation. It's not supported by the facts. Friendship is everywhere presentin Venice; its values are not solely material. Bassanio and Antonio maintain lofty ideals about platonic love.

EVERYONE ---

I'm going out of town and won't be back in the Fray until Monday June 2. Please behave yourselves in the meanwhile.

I'll post briefer synoposes on Monday. Didn't mean to make them as long as above!

AK (#78)

"His ability for dissembling is manifest in the contrast between the aside and the desire for friendship."

Yes, there is a contrast, but I like this interpretation: friendship is what he truly desires, and his bitterness is a result of continual rejection. (Cloton in Cymbeline is a similiar character.) Later events push him over the edge; he's lost wife, daughter, and ducats; why should he waste any more time on these schmucks?

Caulfield - Re: Message #83

I was saying that as early as the first scene in which he appears, Shylock is already planning to decive Antonio and avenge himself. The evidence of the text points my way. Just one piece: I.iii.42-43.

--- If I can catch him once upon the hip,

--- I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.

Can you think of any evidence which support your sentimental interpretaton? I think, on the whole, the interpretation you like diminishes Shylock. But this is not by way of trying to reduce Shylock to simple venality.

The choice of this play was fated. This is revealed by Portia in Act III.

In Scene 2 she says

--With much much more dismay

--I view the fight than thou that makest the fray.

And later, in Scene 3

--I'll ... speak of frays

--Like a fine bragging youth, and tell quaint lies

Yes, there is plenty of room for my interpretation. Shylock gets to say

--In the Rialto you have rated me

--About my moneys and my usances:

--Still have I borne it with a patient shrug.

And then

--I would be friends with you and have your love,

--Forget the shames that you have stain'd me with

And then the "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech reminds us that Shylock has human feelings that can be hurt. It turns out that he has tremendous feeling for his daughter and deceased wife. These are positive aspects that make him (along with his bad points) an interesting character.

This thread being listed as "hot" I looked in and found the following distribition of the last 20 postings.

PseudoErasmus 14

HCaulfield 3

Others 3

Hotting it up almost all by yourself, are you PseudoErasmus?

PseudoErasmus said he had to go away for a few days so he posted a lot in advance. Welcome back, pell, I can always count on you for the missing dumbass p.o.v..

Is that what you meant about the flame thread, Ned?

CoralReef --

What do you mean?

pellenilsson --

Are you some kind of precious moron?

PseudoErasmus is the discussion host. It's his job to do most of the posting. He was selected, in part, with the expectation that he would be able to do what he is doing.

I have an idea: Iam interested in the breakdown of ALL the posts in this thread. Could you count them, please? Let us know how many were written by PseudoErasmus, how many by each of the next three top posters, and how many by all others. Thanks a bunch.

HCaulfield,

Shylock is a strangely sincere character, and there are definitly moments when we gain sympathy for him. But whenever our sympathy grows, his venality and hatred are emphasized. We are actually on an up and down rollercoaster ride withShylock. First he accuses Antonio of disgracing him and then he plots to kill him. He speakes of Launcelot as a "kind patch", but then adds that he is a "huge feeder." He speaks kindly of his daughter, "Jessica, my girl", and instantly remembers his moneybags. Everytime our sympathy rises we are immediately shown his baser attributes of greed and hate in the extreme. He is actually his own worst enemy.

Another juxtaposition is structurally played out constantly with Shylock and Portia . Shylock's first scene is between Portia's first and second, and beginning with her fourth scene they are alternated with almost perfect regularity until the courtroom scene. The contrast is sharpley created with the constant juxtaposition, scene by scene, of Portia and Shylock. And when we see her at her best -- when she is the example of selfless love and friendship by offering her fortune to ransom Bassanio's friend Antonio-- we see Shylock at his worst in the very next scene, raging wildly at Antonio and threatening to take his life ( III.ii and III.iii).

PseudoErasmus

Message #81

Yes, we do see the noble friendship of Antonio and Bassanio displayed in Venice at the very beginning of the play, but throughout the rest of the play Venice is not the shimmering panorama of canals, piazzas, great houses, and iconographic images made famous by tourism. Shakespearean Venice is the world of the Rialto, the area of commercial exchange, and the courtroom where even the Duke is powerless to go beyond the letter of the law. We see references which remind us of the brutal nature of trade and law -- even the Duke is bound to uphold the law lest Venice lose its "trade and profit" (III.iii 30)

The contrast is structurally reinforced by the constant juxtaposition between scenes in Venice and Belmont too. We always see the dark side of Shylock in Venice, then we see the light side of Portia in Belmont.

Message #72

"2) "A stage where every man must play a part",

something Antonio says, is the reason for his gravity. The

world is a testing place for the soul, a place where man is

measured, so to speak."

That the world is a theater, introduced in lines 77-79, is one of the main lines of imagery in the play; it is one of the most constant metaphors in all Shakespearean works. Sometimes the basic tension of an entire play arises from this metaphor: his father's ghost "casts" Hamlet as the revenger, Hamlet himself would "play the antic." In the _Merchant of Venice_ the climatic scene depends upon the success of Portia's deliberate role-playing; other scenes create suspense or amusement as the audience experiences the effect of the roles Portia's suiters have chosen to play.

More to Message #93:

Regarding Venice, Salerio and Salanio (typical Venetians) in I.i account for Antonio's depression as concern for his argosies (9). The hourglass, symbol of the transitory nature of life, reminds Salerio of cargoes lost on sandbars (25-29); in church his mind would turn to vessels torn apart by rocks (29-34).

The final lines of Act I. scene i give us a clue to the understanding of Bassanio. It is important to notice the order which he lists Portia's characteristics (161-163); first, that she is an heiress, second that she is a beauty; third --and most important-- that she has remarkable "powers and gifts" of the mind, imagination, and understanding. It is his mind ( imagination and understanding) that convinces him that if he can secure funds for a trip to Belmont, he can possess the golden fleece. He is not meant to be understood just as a fortune hunter.

Some critics think the reason for Antonio's unhappiness is that Bassonio is getting married. They point to I.i.138-9 and other quotes to establish their proposition that he has more than friendship feelings for Bassonio.

[can you tell I'm readinga book of critical essays about MoV?]

ActI, scene ii,

The dialog between Portia and Nerissa -- really a game of character analysis -- (35-110) resumes the theatrical image initiated in scene i, for Portia's speeches indicate that *each suitor is acting a role*, each is motivated by some passion or humor, is something less than a whole man. I noticed the qualities Portia listed for Bassanio -- a man of the world ( a Venetian), a man of mind ( a scholar), and a man of courage ( a soldier). Bassanio comes off, after the first two scenes,as a proper young gentleman.

PseudoErasmus's observations about ActI scene iii are brilliant! (messages 78, 79, 80)

( My head, previously pompously puffed with sophmoric sophistication, was properly deflated when I realized I gleened none of that sharp analysis in my own reading.)

I noticed that once again we are back in Venice ( "Where money is" 47.184). Shylock is toying with both Antonio and Bassanio, obviously enjoying the power put into his hands. Shylocks aside (38-49) makes clear the motive for his future actions. He refers to the historical enmity of Christian and Jew, "But more" (140): Antonio lends money without interest, threatening Shylock's profits. The motive for Shylock's actions then is revenge.

Shylock's twisting of an Old Testament story into a parable defending usury drives Antonio into a riotous rage and he is really underlining for the audience the role Shylock is playing in line 99 :"O what a goodly outside falsehood hath!"

May the Bard forgive, but I must ask:

Who would be best suited to sing the

"Merchant of Venice" theme?

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