Study guide
The Merchant of Venice
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Overview
- Author
- William Shakespeare (1564–1616), actor, sharer and principal playwright of the Lord Chamberlain's Men
- Genre
- Romantic comedy, in blank verse and prose, with a near-tragic trial at its centre; printed among the comedies in the First Folio
- Written
- About 1596–97; listed by Francis Meres in 1598 and entered in the Stationers' Register in July 1598
- Early texts
- The First Quarto (Q1, 1600), the basis of modern editions; a reprint falsely dated 1600 but printed in 1619 (Q2); and the First Folio (F, 1623)
- Setting
- Venice, a great trading city, and Belmont, Portia's country estate on the mainland
- Sources
- A tale in Il Pecorone by Ser Giovanni Fiorentino (written in the late fourteenth century, printed in 1558); the casket story from the Gesta Romanorum; and Marlowe's The Jew of Malta
- Main characters
- Antonio, the merchant; his friend Bassanio; the heiress Portia and her maid Nerissa; Shylock, a Jewish moneylender, and his daughter Jessica; Lorenzo; Gratiano; the clown Launcelet Gobbo
- Key scenes
- The bond (1.3), the caskets (2.7, 2.9, 3.2), 'Hath not a Jew eyes?' (3.1), the trial (4.1), the rings and the moonlit garden (5.1)
- Famous lines
- 'All that glisters is not gold'; 'If you prick us, do we not bleed?'; 'The quality of mercy is not strain'd'
- Quote text
- The modernised text of Project Gutenberg's edition, cross-checked against its Complete Works
Context
The Merchant of Venice was probably written in 1596 or 1597 for the Lord Chamberlain's Men. Salarino's image of 'my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand' seems to recall the Spanish ship San Andrés, captured at Cádiz in 1596, and Francis Meres named the play among Shakespeare's comedies in 1598. It was entered for publication in July 1598 and printed in 1600. The title page of that quarto advertised two attractions: the 'extreme cruelty' of Shylock the Jew, and the winning of Portia by the choice of three chests. Even in its first printing, then, the play was sold as a comedy built around a villain (Mahood 1987) (Drakakis 2010).
Shakespeare took the main plot from a tale in Il Pecorone, an Italian collection of stories by Ser Giovanni Fiorentino. There a young Venetian, financed by his godfather, wins a lady of Belmonte; the godfather borrows from a Jew on the security of a pound of flesh; and the lady, disguised as a lawyer, saves him and then asks her husband for his ring. Shakespeare replaced the lady's test (in the Italian tale, an erotic trick) with the choice of caskets, a story told in the medieval Latin Gesta Romanorum and available in English. The elopement of Jessica may owe something to a tale by Masuccio and to Marlowe's play. Geoffrey Bullough collects these sources (Bullough 1957).
There was no legal Jewish community in England in the 1590s: Edward I had expelled the Jews in 1290, and the few people of Jewish descent in London lived as nominal Christians. For most of Shakespeare's audience, Jews were figures of sermon, legend and stage. In 1594 Roderigo Lopez, the Queen's Portuguese physician and a man of Jewish origin, was executed for allegedly plotting to poison Elizabeth; his trial was a public sensation, and in the same year the Admiral's Men revived Marlowe's The Jew of Malta, whose villain Barabas is a gleeful poisoner. Shylock is in part Shakespeare's answer to Barabas: more human, more serious, and given reasons for his hatred (Shapiro 1996) (Green 2003) (Bawcutt 1978) (Greenblatt 1978).
Venice was famous in England as a rich, cosmopolitan republic whose courts treated foreign merchants fairly. Its Jewish residents had been required since 1516 to live in the enclosed quarter called the Ghetto, and they were allowed to lend money and trade under terms set by the state. Shakespeare's Venice is an imagined one, and the play never mentions the Ghetto, but it is a city whose prosperity depends on law, credit and outsiders (Davis 2001). In England, lending at interest was condemned by the church and by classical writers who said that money should not 'breed'; an Act of 1571 nevertheless tolerated interest of up to ten per cent. The difference between Antonio's free lending and Shylock's 'usance' therefore touched a live debate in Shakespeare's London (Jones 1989) (Shell 1982).
The play has the shape of a romantic comedy: young lovers, a riddle, disguises, three marriages and a final night of music. C. L. Barber read it as a festive comedy that sets the generosity of Belmont against the hoarding of Venice (Barber 1959). Yet the figure who has dominated its reception is the one who disappears before the last act. After the Holocaust, many readers, directors and audiences have found it impossible to enjoy the comedy without thinking about the treatment of Shylock, and its place on stage and in classrooms has become a matter of debate in its own right (Gross 1992) (Bulman 1991).
Plot overview
Antonio, a wealthy Venetian merchant, is sad without knowing why. His young friend Bassanio, who has spent beyond his means, wants to court Portia, a rich heiress at Belmont, and asks Antonio for money. Antonio's capital is all at sea in his ships, so he borrows three thousand ducats from Shylock, a Jewish moneylender whom he has often insulted. Shylock lends without interest, but on condition that if the loan is not repaid in three months, he may cut a pound of flesh from Antonio's body. Antonio, sure of his ships, agrees.
At Belmont, Portia's dead father has decreed that she must marry the suitor who chooses the right one of three caskets, of gold, silver and lead. The Prince of Morocco chooses gold and the Prince of Arragon silver, and both fail. Meanwhile Shylock's daughter Jessica elopes with Bassanio's friend Lorenzo, taking much of her father's money, and becomes a Christian. Shylock's grief and fury are increased when news comes that Antonio's ships have been lost. Bassanio chooses the lead casket and wins Portia, who gives him a ring he swears never to part with, but a letter arrives: Antonio's bond is forfeit, and Shylock demands his flesh.
Portia sends Bassanio to Venice with money, and follows him disguised as a young doctor of law, with Nerissa, now married to Bassanio's friend Gratiano, as her clerk. In court Shylock refuses every offer and every appeal to mercy. Portia upholds the bond, and then defeats it: Shylock may take flesh, but he may not shed a drop of blood. He is then convicted under a law against aliens who threaten a citizen's life. His wealth is divided, and he is ordered to become a Christian. As her fee, Portia asks Bassanio for his ring, and Nerissa gets Gratiano's.
Back at Belmont, Lorenzo and Jessica sit in the moonlight listening to music. The wives return, then their husbands with Antonio, and the women pretend to be furious about the rings, threatening to sleep with the lawyer and clerk who have them. When Antonio pledges himself for Bassanio's future faith, Portia reveals the truth. She also brings news that three of Antonio's ships have come home safely, and the couples go in to bed.
Scene by scene
Scene 1: Act I, Scene 1: Antonio's sadness and Bassanio's request
Act I, Scene 1 (the whole scene)
Summary
In a Venetian street the merchant Antonio confesses a sadness he cannot explain. His friends Salarino and Solanio suggest that he is anxious for his ships at sea, or in love; he denies both. Bassanio, Lorenzo and the talkative Gratiano arrive, and Gratiano teases Antonio for his gravity before leaving. Alone with Antonio, Bassanio admits that he has spent beyond his means and owes his friend most of all. He proposes to clear his debts by wooing Portia, a rich and beautiful heiress at Belmont, and asks for money to make the journey. Antonio's wealth is all tied up in his cargoes, so he tells Bassanio to borrow on his credit in Venice.
Analysis
The play opens not with its famous villain but with an unexplained melancholy. Antonio's sadness has no named cause, and the friends' guesses (money, love) are exactly the two subjects the play goes on to set against each other. Many readers and directors have found the cause in Antonio's love for Bassanio, which he is about to lose to a wife (Auden 1962) (Sinfield 1996).
Bassanio's speech joins love and money from the start. Portia is 'richly left', a golden fleece sought by 'many Jasons', and his image of shooting a second arrow to find the first is the logic of a gambler doubling his stake. The language of venture, hazard and credit will run through the whole play.
In sooth I know not why I am so sad,
The first line of the play. Antonio's causeless sadness hangs over him until the last scene.
I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano, A stage, where every man must play a part, And mine a sad one.
An early version of the idea that 'all the world's a stage'. Antonio casts himself as the melancholy man.
In Belmont is a lady richly left, And she is fair, and, fairer than that word, Of wondrous virtues.
Bassanio's first description of Portia names her wealth before her beauty and her virtue.
Scene 2: Act I, Scene 2: Portia and her suitors
Act I, Scene 2 (the whole scene)
Summary
At Belmont, Portia tells her waiting-woman Nerissa that she is weary of the world. Her dead father's will forbids her to choose or refuse a husband: each suitor must choose one of three caskets, of gold, silver and lead, and whoever picks the one that holds her portrait will marry her. Nerissa names the suitors who have come so far, and Portia mocks each in turn: a Neapolitan prince who talks only of his horse, a frowning Count Palatine, a French lord who is 'every man in no man', an English baron who speaks no language but his own, a Scottish lord and a drunken German. All have decided to leave rather than risk the test. Nerissa reminds her of a Venetian scholar and soldier, Bassanio, and Portia remembers him warmly. A servant announces the Prince of Morocco.
Analysis
This is a prose scene of witty conversation, and it introduces Portia as the cleverest speaker in the play. Her satire of the suitors plays on national stereotypes that Elizabethan audiences enjoyed, and it ends with a cruel joke about Morocco's skin: she would rather he 'should shrive me than wive me'. Her wit and her prejudice arrive together.
The scene also sets out her bind. Like Jessica later, she is a daughter controlled by a father; unlike Jessica, she decides to obey. The caskets come from a folk-tale tradition, but here they test the man's judgement rather than the woman's (Bullough 1957).
By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world.
Portia's first line echoes Antonio's sadness in the scene before, linking Venice and Belmont.
a living daughter curb’d by the will of a dead father.
Portia's complaint puns on 'will', meaning both desire and testament: her freedom is limited by her father's law.
Scene 3: Act I, Scene 3: The bond
Act I, Scene 3 (the whole scene)
Summary
Bassanio asks the Jewish moneylender Shylock for three thousand ducats for three months, with Antonio as guarantor. Shylock weighs Antonio's credit, noting that his ships are scattered across the seas, and refuses an invitation to dine with Christians. When Antonio enters, Shylock reveals in an aside that he hates him as a Christian and, still more, because he lends money without interest and so lowers the rate in Venice. Antonio says he never lends or borrows at interest; Shylock defends gain with the biblical story of Jacob and Laban's sheep, and Antonio replies that the devil can quote Scripture. Shylock then reminds Antonio how he has insulted him in public, calling him dog and spitting on him. Antonio says he will do it again. Shylock offers, as he says, to be friends: he will lend without interest, but 'in a merry sport' the penalty for default will be a pound of Antonio's flesh. Antonio, sure that his ships will return in time, agrees, despite Bassanio's protest.
Analysis
This is Shylock's first and one of his richest scenes. His repetitions ('Three thousand ducats, well') show a businessman taking his time, and his aside gives two motives at once: religious hatred and commercial rivalry. The debate over Jacob and Laban turns on an old argument, going back to Aristotle, that money is 'barren metal' and should not 'breed' like living things (Shell 1982) (Jones 1989).
His great speech about being spat on gives the audience Shylock's view of the Christians before the bond is sealed. Antonio does not deny the insults, which makes the Christian side of the quarrel hard to admire. The bond itself is a grotesque joke in folk-tale style, but Shylock's 'merry sport' leaves its real purpose uncertain: whether he plans revenge already, or only later when his daughter has fled, is one of the main questions for any reader or actor.
I hate him for he is a Christian, But more for that in low simplicity He lends out money gratis
Shylock's aside gives religious and economic motives side by side.
For suff’rance is the badge of all our tribe.
Shylock presents patient endurance as the mark of the Jewish people.
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
Antonio's reply to the story of Jacob, which makes Shylock's argument diabolical.
let the forfeit Be nominated for an equal pound Of your fair flesh
The terms of the bond, offered as a joke.
Scene 4: Act II, Scene 1: Morocco arrives
Act II, Scene 1 (the whole scene)
Summary
The Prince of Morocco arrives at Belmont and asks Portia not to dislike him for his dark skin, offering to prove that his blood is as red as any northern man's. Portia replies, politely, that she is not free to choose by her eyes in any case. Morocco boasts of his valour and swears the oath required of every suitor: if he chooses wrong, he must never marry. They go to dinner before the choice.
Analysis
Morocco speaks with dignity and some grandeur, and his opening plea answers the joke Portia made about him in the previous scene. Placed just after the bond scene, his appearance widens the play's question about strangers in a Christian society from religion to colour. Portia's courtesy here is diplomatic, and the audience knows what she said in private.
Mislike me not for my complexion, The shadowed livery of the burnish’d sun,
Morocco's first words ask Portia to look beyond his colour.
Scene 5: Act II, Scene 2: Launcelet changes masters
Act II, Scene 2 (the whole scene)
Summary
Launcelet Gobbo, Shylock's servant, debates comically with his conscience and 'the fiend' about whether to run away from his master. His blind old father arrives looking for him, and Launcelet teases him before revealing himself. Together they ask Bassanio to take Launcelet into his service, and Bassanio agrees: Shylock has already let him go. Gratiano begs to go to Belmont with Bassanio, who warns him to tame his wild manners there; Gratiano promises to behave like a sober churchgoer.
Analysis
The clown's prose scene is a comic version of the play's serious choices. Launcelet weighs conscience against temptation as a morality play would, but he decides by joking that Shylock is 'the very devil'. His mock-cruel game with his blind father, who cannot recognise his son, also prepares for Shylock and Jessica: another parent and child, another departure.
Gratiano's promise to wear 'prayer-books in my pocket' and look demure is a joke about putting on a good outside, which the casket scenes will make the central question of Belmont.
Certainly the Jew is the very devil incarnation
Launcelet's comic theology repeats a slander that the play's Christians use in earnest.
is a wise father that knows his own child.
Launcelet reverses the proverb, which ran 'It is a wise child that knows his own father'.
Scene 6: Act II, Scene 3: Jessica's farewell to Launcelet
Act II, Scene 3 (the whole scene)
Summary
Shylock's daughter Jessica says goodbye to Launcelet, who has made her father's dull house more bearable. She gives him a ducat and a letter for Lorenzo. Alone, she admits she is ashamed to be her father's child and hopes that Lorenzo will keep his promise, so that she can become a Christian and his wife.
Analysis
Jessica's first scene is very short, and she is already planning to leave. Her phrase 'Our house is hell' gives the audience a picture of Shylock's home, though it comes from a daughter who wants to escape it. Her soliloquy separates 'blood' from 'manners': she is his daughter by birth but not in conduct. Whether that separation is possible is a question the play asks again and again (Adelman 2008).
Alack, what heinous sin is it in me To be ashamed to be my father’s child!
Jessica's conscience is troubled, but her decision is already made.
Scene 7: Act II, Scene 4: The masque and Jessica's letter
Act II, Scene 4 (the whole scene)
Summary
Lorenzo, Gratiano, Salarino and Solanio plan a masque for that night. Launcelet brings Lorenzo Jessica's letter, and Lorenzo sends back word that he will not fail her. Lorenzo then tells Gratiano the plan: Jessica will leave her father's house dressed as a page, bringing gold and jewels, and act as Lorenzo's torch-bearer in the masque.
Analysis
The scene shows the Christian young men at play, and the elopement as part of their entertainment. Lorenzo's praise of Jessica's 'gentle' nature carries a pun on 'Gentile' that the play uses again in the next scenes. He already speaks of her father's money in the same breath as her love.
If e’er the Jew her father come to heaven, It will be for his gentle daughter’s sake;
Lorenzo makes Jessica the only means of grace for her father.
Scene 8: Act II, Scene 5: Shylock leaves his house
Act II, Scene 5 (the whole scene)
Summary
Shylock tells Launcelet that he will find Bassanio a worse master, and calls for Jessica. He has been invited to supper and hands her his keys, though he goes unwillingly, in hate, and has dreamed of money-bags. When Launcelet mentions a masque, Shylock orders Jessica to lock the doors and not look out at the Christian revellers. Launcelet whispers to her that a Christian will pass by. After Shylock leaves, Jessica says that if her plan succeeds, she has lost a father and he a daughter.
Analysis
This is the only scene in which we see Shylock at home with his daughter, and the playwright gives him an unexpected domestic quality. His fear of the music and painted faces of the street makes him seem severe and puritanical, but also isolated. His decision to dine with Christians after refusing in 1.3 is a sign that his hatred is growing.
The irony is sharp: Shylock leaves his keys with the daughter who is about to rob him, and his proverb about thrift ('Fast bind, fast find') goes out of the door with him.
I am not bid for love, they flatter me.
Shylock sees through the invitation, and goes anyway.
Farewell, and if my fortune be not crost, I have a father, you a daughter, lost.
Jessica's rhyming couplet ends the scene with her decision.
Scene 9: Act II, Scene 6: The elopement
Act II, Scene 6 (the whole scene)
Summary
Gratiano and Salarino wait outside Shylock's house, joking that lovers are always quicker to court than to keep faith. Lorenzo arrives, and Jessica appears at a window dressed as a boy. She throws down a casket of money and jewels, goes back in to gather more ducats, and leaves with Lorenzo. Antonio then arrives with the news that the wind has changed: the masque is cancelled and Bassanio must sail at once.
Analysis
The elopement is a romantic set piece, with a window, a disguise and a lover beneath, but it is also a theft. Jessica's casket of treasure is the first of the play's caskets to be opened, and she goes back to gild herself with more of her father's ducats. Gratiano's lines about the ship that returns 'beggar'd by the strumpet wind' give a disenchanted view of love and of venture just as Antonio's ships set the plot in motion.
But love is blind, and lovers cannot see The pretty follies that themselves commit,
Jessica is ashamed of her boy's disguise, and conscious of the folly of love.
Now, by my hood, a gentle, and no Jew.
Gratiano's pun on gentle and Gentile: Jessica is being counted already as a Christian.
Scene 10: Act II, Scene 7: Morocco chooses gold
Act II, Scene 7 (the whole scene)
Summary
The curtains are drawn back to show the three caskets. Their inscriptions read: gold, 'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire'; silver, 'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves'; and lead, 'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath'. Morocco rejects lead as base and hesitates over silver, but decides that so precious a woman must be kept in gold. Inside he finds a skull and a scroll beginning 'All that glisters is not gold'. He leaves in grief. Portia hopes that all of his complexion will choose as he did.
Analysis
Morocco reasons nobly but by appearances: he assumes that value must show on the outside. The skull, a 'carrion Death', is a memento mori that turns his golden hopes into a reminder of mortality. The scene is often played for pathos, but Portia's last couplet returns to the prejudice of 1.2. Many modern productions cut or soften it, while others stress it to show the limits of Belmont's charm.
All that glisters is not gold, Often have you heard that told.
The scroll in the golden casket gives the moral of the test. 'Glisters' means 'glitters'.
Let all of his complexion choose me so.
Portia's dismissal of Morocco. 'Complexion' could mean temperament, but most readers take it here to mean colour.
Scene 11: Act II, Scene 8: Shylock's loss reported
Act II, Scene 8 (the whole scene)
Summary
In Venice, Salarino and Solanio report that Bassanio has sailed, that Shylock and the Duke searched the ship too late, and that Lorenzo and Jessica were seen together in a gondola. Solanio mimics Shylock's cries in the street, mixing his daughter and his ducats, while the boys of Venice mock him. Salarino has heard that a Venetian ship has been lost in the Channel and fears it is Antonio's. He describes Antonio's tearful parting from Bassanio.
Analysis
We do not see Shylock's grief: we hear it parodied by two Christians who find it funny. His confused cry turns his daughter and his money into a single loss, and it has often been taken as proof of his avarice. But the way the scene is reported matters: an actor can make it the grief of a betrayed father seen through mocking eyes. The account of Antonio's farewell, in contrast, is full of tenderness.
My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter! Fled with a Christian! O my Christian ducats!
Solanio's mockery of Shylock's grief, in which daughter and money are mixed.
I think he only loves the world for him.
Solanio on Antonio's devotion to Bassanio.
Scene 12: Act II, Scene 9: Arragon chooses silver
Act II, Scene 9 (the whole scene)
Summary
The Prince of Arragon swears the oath and comes to choose. He rejects lead at once, and gold because it would put him among the 'fool multitude' who choose by show. He chooses silver, confident that he deserves Portia, and finds a portrait of a 'blinking idiot' with a scroll mocking his folly. He leaves, and a messenger reports that a young Venetian has arrived ahead of his master with rich gifts.
Analysis
Arragon makes the opposite mistake to Morocco. He sees through outward show but trusts his own merit, and his speech on how rarely honours are deserved is shrewd even while it is self-regarding. The casket punishes pride rather than greed. The two failures leave only lead, so the audience knows the answer before Bassanio arrives.
I will not choose what many men desire, Because I will not jump with common spirits
Arragon's snobbery: he despises the many and trusts his own desert.
Hanging and wiving goes by destiny.
Nerissa's proverb on the role of fortune in marriage.
Scene 13: Act III, Scene 1: 'Hath not a Jew eyes?'
Act III, Scene 1 (the whole scene)
Summary
Salarino and Solanio confirm that Antonio has lost a ship. Shylock enters and accuses them of helping Jessica escape. They mock him, and ask if he would really take Antonio's flesh. Shylock answers that it will feed his revenge, and in a famous speech asks whether a Jew does not have eyes, hands and feelings like a Christian, and whether, if wronged, he will not take revenge like a Christian. His friend Tubal returns from Genoa without Jessica. He reports in turn that she is spending her father's money freely and that Antonio has lost more ships. Shylock swings between despair and glee. He is wounded most by the news that Jessica traded a turquoise ring, a gift from his wife Leah, for a monkey. He tells Tubal to hire an officer to arrest Antonio.
Analysis
This is the scene in which the play gives Shylock his fullest humanity and his clearest motive. The speech 'Hath not a Jew eyes?' is often quoted as a plea for tolerance, and its catalogue of shared senses makes a strong case for common humanity. But it argues towards revenge, not mercy: the lesson he has learned from Christian example is revenge (Gross 1992).
The Tubal sequence, with its rapid shifts between bad and good news, can be played as comedy, and probably was in the 1590s. Yet the line about Leah's ring, the only mention of Shylock's wife, gives him a private grief the Christians never see. After this scene, his anger at the loss of his daughter is directed at Antonio's body (Shapiro 1996).
Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs,
The opening of Shylock's most famous speech, which claims a common humanity.
If you prick us, do we not bleed?
The speech's physical argument prepares for the pound of flesh and its blood.
I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.
Shylock on Leah's turquoise ring, which Jessica has traded away.
Scene 14: Act III, Scene 2: Bassanio chooses lead
Act III, Scene 2 (the whole scene)
Summary
Portia asks Bassanio to wait before he chooses, and nearly tells him that she loves him. While music plays and a song asks where 'fancy' (attraction) is born, Bassanio reflects that the world is deceived by ornament. He rejects gold and silver, chooses lead, and finds Portia's portrait and a scroll telling him to claim her with a kiss. Portia gives herself, her house and her fortune to him, together with a ring that he must never part with. Gratiano and Nerissa announce that they too will marry. Lorenzo, Jessica and Salerio arrive with a letter: Antonio's ships are lost, his bond is forfeit, and Shylock wants his flesh. Portia orders Bassanio to marry her at once and go to Venice with money to pay twenty times the debt.
Analysis
The centre of the play's romance is a lesson in reading. Bassanio's speech on ornament, set against the song, which some critics believe hints at the answer through its rhymes with 'lead', concludes that true value is hidden under a plain surface. Whether Portia helps him is debated; she says she will not break her oath, and the text leaves the question open. The lead casket's demand to 'give and hazard all' turns the language of commerce into the language of love (Barber 1959) (Danson 1978).
Portia's speech of surrender is beautiful and conventional, as she calls herself 'an unlesson'd girl' and hands over her rule to her 'lord'. The ring she gives with herself makes the gift conditional, and the arrival of Antonio's letter at once shows Bassanio's two bonds pulling against each other (Newman 1987).
Tell me where is fancy bred, Or in the heart or in the head?
The song played while Bassanio chooses. 'Fancy' is love born of the eyes.
The world is still deceiv’d with ornament.
Bassanio's principle in choosing the lead casket. 'Still' means always.
Is an unlesson’d girl, unschool’d, unpractis’d;
Portia's modest self-description, soon contradicted by her performance in court.
Since you are dear bought, I will love you dear.
Portia's pun on value, spoken as she sends her new husband to Venice.
Scene 15: Act III, Scene 3: Antonio under arrest
Act III, Scene 3 (the whole scene)
Summary
Antonio, under guard, tries to plead with Shylock, who refuses to hear him and insists on his bond. Shylock reminds him that he called him dog before he had a cause: now he should beware his fangs. Antonio says that Shylock hates him because he has often rescued debtors from his forfeits, and that the Duke cannot set aside the law because Venice depends on treating foreign traders fairly. He asks only that Bassanio come to see him pay the debt.
Analysis
This short scene states the legal problem that the trial must solve. Antonio's explanation of Venetian law is important: the city's wealth rests on contracts that must be enforced for strangers too. Mercy and commerce are in conflict, and the law itself seems to favour Shylock. Shylock's repetitions of 'I'll have my bond' turn the contract into a refrain.
Thou call’dst me dog before thou hadst a cause, But since I am a dog, beware my fangs;
Shylock accepts the insult and turns it into a threat.
The Duke cannot deny the course of law,
Antonio's explanation of why Venice must keep its contracts.
Scene 16: Act III, Scene 4: Portia's plan
Act III, Scene 4 (the whole scene)
Summary
Portia leaves Lorenzo and Jessica in charge of Belmont, claiming that she and Nerissa will live in a monastery until their husbands return. She sends her servant Balthazar to her cousin, the learned lawyer Doctor Bellario in Padua, to collect notes and clothes. She then tells Nerissa that they will go to Venice disguised as young men, and imagines how she will swagger and boast in the part.
Analysis
Portia takes charge of the plot. Her comparison of Antonio to Bassanio, as 'the semblance of my soul', makes a generous claim on her husband's friend, and also a competitive one. Her comic speech about acting the young man is the playwright's joke about his own boy actors: a boy playing a woman playing a man. The disguise frees her from the passive role of the casket heiress (Newman 1987).
I never did repent for doing good,
Portia's first line in the scene presents her rescue of Antonio as virtue.
When we are both accoutered like young men, I’ll prove the prettier fellow of the two,
The start of Portia's comic speech about male disguise.
Scene 17: Act III, Scene 5: Launcelet and Jessica at Belmont
Act III, Scene 5 (the whole scene)
Summary
Launcelet tells Jessica that she is damned for her father's sins, unless she was not his daughter at all. Jessica replies that her husband has made her a Christian, and Launcelet complains that converting Jews will raise the price of pork. Lorenzo enters and accuses Launcelet of making a Moorish woman pregnant, which Launcelet answers with puns. Lorenzo and Jessica then praise Portia and joke affectionately about each other.
Analysis
This comic interlude matters more than it seems. Launcelet's jokes question whether conversion can change what Jessica is, and the play gives no clear answer. The brief mention of the pregnant Moorish woman, who never appears, is a reminder of the other outsiders on the play's margins (Adelman 2008).
This making of Christians will raise the price of hogs
Launcelet's joke reduces conversion to the economics of diet.
I shall be saved by my husband. He hath made me a Christian.
Jessica's confidence in her new identity, which Launcelet mocks.
Scene 18: Act IV, Scene 1: The trial
Act IV, Scene 1 (the whole scene)
Summary
In the Duke's court, Antonio prepares to suffer patiently. The Duke appeals to Shylock to show mercy, but Shylock says that he will give no reason for his choice but his 'humour', and a deep hatred of Antonio. He refuses six thousand ducats from Bassanio and compares the pound of flesh to the slaves the Venetians own. Nerissa arrives disguised as a clerk with a letter from Bellario recommending a young doctor of law, and Portia enters as 'Balthazar'.
Portia admits that the bond is legal and asks Shylock to be merciful, in her speech on 'the quality of mercy'. He refuses. She declines Bassanio's plea to bend the law, and Shylock praises her as 'a Daniel come to judgment'. As Shylock prepares to cut, Portia points out that the bond gives him flesh but 'no jot of blood': if he sheds any, his goods are forfeit. He tries to accept the money instead, but she rules that he has refused it. She then cites a law against any alien who seeks the life of a citizen. The Duke spares Shylock's life; Antonio asks that half of Shylock's wealth be held for Lorenzo and Jessica, and that Shylock become a Christian. Shylock says he is content and leaves, ill. As a fee, Portia asks for Bassanio's ring. He refuses at first, but at Antonio's urging he sends it after her.
Analysis
The trial is one of the great courtroom scenes in drama. Portia's speech on mercy draws on Christian teaching (that no one is saved by justice alone, and that prayer for mercy obliges us to show it) and has been read as an allegory of the New Law of grace against the Old Law of strict justice (Lewalski 1962). But the scene turns on legal cunning, and Portia's own judgement is strict, not merciful. The audience is asked to enjoy the reversal while noticing how harsh the Christians' 'mercy' is.
The forced conversion is the hardest point for modern audiences. For an Elizabethan Christian it could be presented as a mercy that would save Shylock's soul; for many modern readers it is the final destruction of his identity. Shylock's question 'Is that the law?' and his weak 'I am content' are among the most difficult moments in the play to stage (Gross 1992) (Shapiro 1996).
The ring episode begins before the scene ends. Antonio asks Bassanio to value 'his deservings and my love' above his wife's command, so the end of the trial sets the friend and the wife against each other once more.
Which is the merchant here? And which the Jew?
Portia's question has been read as a hint that the two men are less different than they seem.
The quality of mercy is not strain’d, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath.
The opening of Portia's speech. 'Strain'd' means forced.
A Daniel come to judgment! Yea, a Daniel!
Shylock praises the judge with the name of a wise biblical judge. Gratiano will throw the phrase back at him.
This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood.
The turning point of the trial: the bond is defeated by its own letter.
You take my house when you do take the prop That doth sustain my house
Shylock's response to the confiscation of his wealth.
He presently become a Christian;
Antonio's condition, which the Duke enforces.
Scene 19: Act IV, Scene 2: Nerissa's ring
Act IV, Scene 2 (the whole scene)
Summary
Portia sends Nerissa to have Shylock sign the deed of gift. Gratiano catches them up with Bassanio's ring and an invitation to dinner. Nerissa decides to try to get her own husband's ring as well, and Portia looks forward to the men's protests.
Analysis
A short bridge scene that turns the play back to comedy. The rings now pass from husbands to disguised wives, and the plot that began as a test of men by caskets ends as a test of men by rings.
We shall have old swearing That they did give the rings away to men;
Portia anticipates the joke of Act V: the 'men' were their wives.
Scene 20: Act V, Scene 1: Moonlight, music and the rings
Act V, Scene 1 (the whole scene)
Summary
At Belmont, Lorenzo and Jessica compare the moonlit night to the nights of famous lovers: Troilus and Cressida, Pyramus and Thisbe, Dido, Medea and, playfully, themselves. News comes that Portia and Bassanio are returning, and Lorenzo calls for music and speaks about the music of the spheres. Portia and Nerissa arrive, then their husbands with Antonio. Nerissa at once accuses Gratiano of giving away her ring; Gratiano blames Bassanio, and Portia, feigning anger, swears that she will sleep with the doctor who has her husband's ring. Antonio offers to be bound again, his soul as surety, for Bassanio's faith. Portia gives him the ring to pass to Bassanio, who recognises it, and the women reveal the truth. Portia also has a letter saying that three of Antonio's ships have come safely home, and Nerissa gives Lorenzo the deed of Shylock's estate. Gratiano ends the play with a bawdy joke about the ring.
Analysis
The final act brings the play back to the green world of comedy, but not without shadows. The lovers Lorenzo and Jessica list are nearly all betrayed or tragic, and Jessica's line that she is never merry when she hears sweet music is a small note of sadness. Lorenzo's speech on harmony describes an order that humans cannot hear 'whilst this muddy vesture of decay' encloses us (Danson 1978).
The ring plot reverses the bond. Antonio once offered his body for Bassanio's debt; now he offers his soul for Bassanio's faith, and the ring passes from Portia to Antonio to Bassanio, so that the wife takes the friend's place as the one to whom Bassanio is bound. Antonio's ships are restored by a letter whose origin Portia will not explain, and he is left alone among the married couples. Shylock is not mentioned, except as 'the rich Jew' whose estate the lovers will inherit (Newman 1987) (Sinfield 1996).
The moon shines bright. In such a night as this,
The opening of the lovers' duet.
I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
Jessica's only remark on the music, which leaves her isolation in Belmont open to interpretation.
The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not mov’d with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
Lorenzo's claim may glance at Shylock, who hated the masquers' music.
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
Portia's return home. 'Naughty' means wicked.
I once did lend my body for his wealth,
Antonio offers to bind himself again, this time for Bassanio's faith in marriage.
Characters
Venice
- Antonio
- The merchant of the title, a wealthy, generous and melancholy Venetian whose fortune is at sea. He lends money without interest, insults Shylock in public, and risks his body for his friend Bassanio. His devotion to Bassanio, and his isolation among the married couples at the end, have led many critics to see his love as the play's unspoken sorrow.
- Bassanio
- A young Venetian gentleman, charming and in debt. He sets out to win Portia partly to restore his fortune, chooses the lead casket by distrusting outward show, and is torn between his wife and his friend when he gives away her ring.
- Lorenzo
- Bassanio's friend who elopes with Jessica. He looks after Belmont in Portia's absence and speaks the great speech on music and the harmony of the spheres in Act V.
- Gratiano
- Bassanio's loud, joking friend, who marries Nerissa. In the trial he is Shylock's most savage tormentor, and he has the last, bawdy word of the play.
- Old Gobbo
- Launcelet's blind father, whom his son teases before he reveals himself.
- The Duke of Venice
- The ruler who presides over the trial. He appeals to Shylock for mercy, spares his life, and enforces Antonio's conditions.
- Salarino, Solanio and Salerio
- Antonio's friends, who report news, mock Shylock, and, in Salerio's case, bring Antonio's letter to Belmont. Early texts often confuse their names.
- Doctor Bellario
- Portia's cousin, a learned lawyer of Padua, who never appears but supplies the notes, clothes and letter that make her disguise possible.
Shylock's household
- Shylock
- A Jewish moneylender of Venice, widower of Leah and father of Jessica. Proud, sardonic and isolated, he has suffered Christian contempt and hates Antonio both as a Christian and as a business rival. After his daughter's flight he presses the bond for a pound of flesh with growing fury. He loses the case, half his wealth and his religion, and leaves the play before the last act. He speaks in only five scenes but has dominated the play's history.
- Jessica
- Shylock's daughter, who finds her father's house 'hell', elopes with Lorenzo disguised as a boy, takes his money and jewels, and becomes a Christian. Her uneasy position at Belmont, where Launcelet jokes that she is still damned, makes her one of the play's most debated figures.
- Launcelet Gobbo
- The clown, Shylock's servant, who leaves him to serve Bassanio. His comic debates and puns parody the play's serious questions about conscience, inheritance and conversion.
- Tubal
- A wealthy Jew and Shylock's friend, who searches for Jessica in Genoa and brings Shylock alternating news of his losses and Antonio's.
Belmont
- Portia
- A rich and brilliant heiress bound by her father's casket test. Witty, decisive and capable of cruel jokes, she falls in love with Bassanio, rescues his friend by disguising herself as the lawyer Balthazar, and controls the comedy of the rings. She is the play's largest part.
- Nerissa
- Portia's waiting-woman and confidante, who marries Gratiano. She disguises herself as the lawyer's clerk and plays her own version of the ring trick.
- The Prince of Morocco
- A dignified, boastful suitor who asks Portia not to judge him by his colour and chooses the gold casket.
- The Prince of Arragon
- A proud Spanish suitor who scorns the multitude, trusts his own desert, and chooses the silver casket.
Themes
Mercy and justice
The trial sets Shylock's demand for the letter of the law against Portia's appeal to mercy. Her speech draws on the Christian teaching that all need forgiveness, and the play has often been read as a contrast between the Old Law of strict justice and the New Law of grace (Lewalski 1962).
But the Christians' mercy is ambiguous. Portia wins by an even stricter reading of the bond, and Shylock is spared his life only to lose his wealth and faith. The play invites the audience to ask whether mercy has been shown or only claimed.
Bonds, debts and money
Almost every relationship in the play is described in financial terms: Bassanio's debts, Antonio's credit, Portia as a golden fleece, Jessica's ducats and the cost of her ring. The bond for a pound of flesh is the darkest version of a world in which bodies and love are pledged like goods (Shell 1982).
Antonio's free lending and Shylock's interest are presented as opposites, but the play keeps blurring the line between generosity and commerce. Bassanio's courtship is itself a venture, and Portia 'buys' her husband's friend's life with her gold.
Appearance and reality
The casket test teaches that 'all that glisters is not gold' and that the worthiest choice may look the least attractive. Bassanio wins by distrusting ornament.
The same lesson turns against the play's own Venetians. Antonio's virtue and Shylock's villainy are not as plain as the characters claim, and Portia, the champion of hidden worth, wins her case in a disguise. Her question 'Which is the merchant here? And which the Jew?' points to how alike the opponents may be (Danson 1978).
Outsiders and religious difference
Venice depends on strangers, yet it treats Shylock as an alien and uses that status against him in the trial. The play gives him eloquent arguments for his common humanity and also uses old stereotypes of Jewish greed and cruelty. Readers have long disagreed about which of these finally dominates (Shapiro 1996) (Gross 1992).
Religion is not the only boundary. Morocco's colour, Portia's jokes about foreign suitors and the unseen Moorish woman in 3.5 show a society that defines itself against many kinds of outsider. Jessica, who crosses the boundary by marriage and conversion, is accepted only partly (Adelman 2008).
Love, friendship and rivalry
Antonio's love for Bassanio, which he will prove with his own body, competes with Bassanio's marriage to Portia. Portia's rescue of Antonio and her test with the ring make the rivalry explicit, and the last scene settles it in her favour (Sinfield 1996).
W. H. Auden saw Antonio as a figure set apart from the play's happy ending, and productions since the 1980s have often made his isolation the final image (Auden 1962).
Fathers and children
Portia obeys a dead father's will and is rewarded; Jessica defies a living father and is rewarded too, though more uneasily. Launcelet's comedy with his blind father and his jokes about the sins of the father add a lighter version of the same question: how much do children inherit from their parents, by blood or by law?
Motifs
Flesh and blood
Shylock calls Jessica 'my flesh and my blood', Morocco offers to show that his blood is red, and the bond demands flesh but not blood. The play's language of bodies links kinship, race and the legal trick that saves Antonio.
Venture and hazard
Antonio's ships, Bassanio's courtship and the lead casket's demand to 'give and hazard all' make love and trade into forms of risk. The comedy rewards those who hazard, and punishes the one who insists on security.
Breeding and usury
Shylock's story of Jacob's sheep and Antonio's question whether gold and silver are 'ewes and rams' bring in the old argument that money should not breed. The same words for increase run through jokes about marriage and children.
Oaths
Suitors swear oaths before the caskets, Shylock swears by his Sabbath to have his bond, and husbands swear to keep their rings. Much of the plot depends on whether oaths bind, and on who interprets them.
Music
Shylock tells Jessica to shut out the music of the masque, music plays while Bassanio chooses, and Lorenzo praises the harmony of the spheres in Act V. Music marks the world of Belmont and its exclusions.
Symbols
The three caskets
Gold, silver and lead represent what many desire, what one deserves, and what demands sacrifice. Each suitor reveals his character by the way he reads them.
The pound of flesh
The penalty in the bond stands for the cruelty of a law followed to the letter, and for the way the play turns human bodies into security for debts. It also echoes the slander that Jews sought Christian blood.
The rings
Portia's and Nerissa's rings stand for marriage vows and for the wife's possession of her husband. Passing through the hands of the disguised wives and of Antonio, they show how much Bassanio's love is shared, and how firmly Portia means to claim it.
Leah's turquoise
The ring Shylock received from his wife, traded by Jessica for a monkey, is the one object in the play that stands for Shylock's private love rather than his wealth.
The candle in the hall
Portia's 'little candle' shining in a 'naughty world' is an image of good deeds, but it also reminds the audience how small the circle of Belmont's light may be.
Critical debates
Is the play antisemitic?
Shylock is a stage Jew in a long tradition: avaricious, vengeful and repeatedly called a devil, and the comedy rewards his defeat and forced conversion. Many readers, among them John Gross, conclude that the play draws on and reinforces antisemitic stereotypes, whatever sympathy it also shows (Gross 1992).
Others argue that the play exposes rather than shares Christian prejudice. Shylock is given reasons for his hatred, and the Christians are shown to be hypocritical. James Shapiro has shown how Elizabethan ideas about Jews, conversion and national identity shaped the play, and argues that it cannot be separated from those anxieties, whatever its intentions (Shapiro 1996). Stephen Greenblatt compared Shylock with Marlowe's Barabas, suggesting that both plays tie Jewishness to the economic life of Christian society (Greenblatt 1978).
Comic villain or tragic figure?
Elizabethan audiences probably saw Shylock as a comic villain, perhaps played in a red wig like the stage Judas. In 1701 George Granville's adaptation The Jew of Venice made him a buffoon. Charles Macklin restored Shakespeare's text in 1741 and played Shylock as a terrifying figure (Gross 1992) (Bulman 1991).
In 1814 Edmund Kean played Shylock in a black wig, as a man of passion and suffering; William Hazlitt, borrowing a phrase from King Lear, called Shylock a man 'no less sinned against than sinning' (Hazlitt 1817). Henry Irving's Lyceum production of 1879, with Ellen Terry as Portia, made Shylock a dignified and wronged Jewish gentleman; Irving even added a scene in which Shylock returns to his empty house after Jessica's flight. Since then, most productions have had to decide how far Shylock is the play's tragic centre (Bulman 1991).
Christian allegory
Barbara Lewalski read the play as a structured allegory: Shylock represents the Old Law of justice, Portia the New Law of mercy, and the trial the victory of grace. On this reading, the conversion is a happy ending in theological terms (Lewalski 1962).
Critics who doubt such readings point to the Christians' unmerciful behaviour and to the legal trickery of the trial. Lawrence Danson tried to reconcile the two views by showing how the play's harmonies include its discords, while Avraham Oz has studied its biblical riddles alongside the history of its reception (Danson 1978) (Oz 1995).
Antonio's melancholy and his love for Bassanio
The play never explains Antonio's sadness. W. H. Auden suggested that Antonio is a man whose love for Bassanio cannot be expressed and who therefore stands apart from the happy couples (Auden 1962).
Alan Sinfield argued that the play places homoerotic friendship below marriage and that readers should notice how its comedy depends on that hierarchy. Many recent productions present Antonio's love openly, and end with him alone (Sinfield 1996).
Portia, the ring and power in marriage
Portia submits to her father's will and to her husband in words, yet she controls the plot. Karen Newman read her ring as a sign of the exchange of women between men, and showed how Portia uses gift and debt to turn the system to her own advantage, binding Bassanio and Antonio to her (Newman 1987).
The disguise of a boy actor playing a woman playing a man adds a further layer, and her performance in court has been seen both as a triumph of female intelligence and as a defence of the Venetian order against outsiders (Drakakis 2010).
Jessica, conversion and blood
Jessica's escape can be read as liberation from a harsh father or as betrayal. Her conversion also raises the question of whether a Jew can become a Christian at all: Launcelet's jokes suggest that she cannot, and Lorenzo and Gratiano praise her as 'gentle' in a way that implies she was never really a Jew (Adelman 2008).
Janet Adelman argued that the play is haunted by Christian anxieties about its own origins in Judaism, and that Jessica's uneasy place in Belmont shows the limits of conversion. Shapiro links these anxieties to Elizabethan debates about race and national identity (Adelman 2008) (Shapiro 1996).
The play after the Holocaust
The play was popular in Germany, and in the Nazi period it was used for propaganda: a production at the Vienna Burgtheater in 1943 cast Werner Krauss as a grotesque Shylock. Andrew Bonnell has traced how German theatre moved from sympathetic to openly antisemitic readings (Bonnell 2008).
Since 1945, directors have responded in very different ways. Some set the play in later periods, as Jonathan Miller did with Laurence Olivier as a Victorian financier in 1970; some make the Christians' cruelty plain; some, especially in Germany and Israel, have staged it as a direct confrontation with history. The question of whether and how the play should be performed has become part of its meaning (Bulman 1991) (Gross 1992).
Key passages
In sooth I know not why I am so sad,
The first line of the play introduces Antonio's mysterious melancholy, which the play never fully explains. Its causes, from fear for his fortune to his love for Bassanio, are among the play's open questions.
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
Antonio dismisses Shylock's biblical defence of profit. The line shows how the Christians identify the Jew with the devil.
For suff’rance is the badge of all our tribe.
Shylock describes the patient endurance of insult that he has practised. The scene suggests that his patience is at an end.
All that glisters is not gold, Often have you heard that told.
The moral of the casket test. The proverb warns against judging by outward show, a lesson the whole play applies to its characters.
If you prick us, do we not bleed?
Part of the speech in which Shylock insists that Jews share a common humanity with Christians. He uses the argument to justify revenge, not to ask for tolerance.
I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.
Shylock's grief at the loss of the ring his wife Leah gave him. The line reveals a private love behind the moneylender's mask.
The world is still deceiv’d with ornament.
Bassanio's reasoning before he chooses the lead casket. He rejects outward show, and wins Portia.
The quality of mercy is not strain’d, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath.
Portia's appeal to Shylock. Mercy, she says, cannot be forced; it is a free gift like rain, and it blesses both giver and receiver.
This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood.
The legal turn that saves Antonio. Shylock's insistence on the letter of the bond is turned against him.
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
Portia's lines on her return to Belmont. They are a gracious image of virtue, spoken by a woman who has just defeated Shylock, and an audience may hear them with some irony.
Questions for study
Why is Antonio sad at the start of the play, and is he still sad at the end?
Consider his friends' guesses in 1.1, his parting from Bassanio in 2.8, his words in the trial, and his position in 5.1.
What are Shylock's reasons for hating Antonio, and do they change during the play?
Compare his aside in 1.3 with his speeches in 3.1 and 4.1, and think about the effect of Jessica's flight.
How does each suitor's choice of casket reveal his character?
Look at the reasoning of Morocco (2.7), Arragon (2.9) and Bassanio (3.2), and at the scrolls they find.
Does Portia help Bassanio choose the right casket?
Consider her oath, her speech before the choice, and the song in 3.2.
Is 'Hath not a Jew eyes?' a plea for tolerance or a justification of revenge?
Read the whole speech in 3.1, and notice where it ends.
How merciful is the Christians' treatment of Shylock in the trial?
Compare Portia's speech on mercy with the sentence, and think about Antonio's conditions and Gratiano's comments.
What does the play suggest about money and love? Are they opposed?
Think about Bassanio's motives, Portia's wealth, Jessica's ducats and the language of bonds and debts.
How is Jessica presented, and how does her position change after she reaches Belmont?
Look at 2.3, 2.6, 3.5 and 5.1, and at what other characters say about her.
What is the purpose of the ring plot in Acts IV and V?
Think about Antonio's request in 4.1, Portia's threats in 5.1, and Antonio's second pledge.
How have actors and directors changed the meaning of Shylock since the eighteenth century, and why?
Consider Macklin, Kean, Irving and post-war productions, and how history shapes what audiences see.
Further reading
- Adelman, Janet. Blood Relations: Christian and Jew in The Merchant of Venice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.
- Auden, W. H. 'Brothers and Others.' In The Dyer's Hand and Other Essays. New York: Random House, 1962.
- Barber, C. L. Shakespeare's Festive Comedy: A Study of Dramatic Form and Its Relation to Social Custom. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959.
- Bawcutt, N. W., ed. The Jew of Malta. By Christopher Marlowe. The Revels Plays. Manchester: Manchester University Press; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978.
- Bonnell, Andrew G. Shylock in Germany: Antisemitism and the German Theatre from the Enlightenment to the Nazis. London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2008.
- Bullough, Geoffrey, ed. Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare. Vol. 1: Early Comedies, Poems, Romeo and Juliet. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul; New York: Columbia University Press, 1957.
- Bulman, James C. The Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare in Performance. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991.
- Danson, Lawrence. The Harmonies of The Merchant of Venice. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1978.
- Davis, Robert C., and Benjamin Ravid, eds. The Jews of Early Modern Venice. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.
- Drakakis, John, ed. The Merchant of Venice. The Arden Shakespeare, Third Series. London: Arden Shakespeare, 2010.
- Green, Dominic. The Double Life of Doctor Lopez: Spies, Shakespeare and the Plot to Poison Elizabeth I. London: Century, 2003.
- Greenblatt, Stephen. 'Marlowe, Marx, and Anti-Semitism.' Critical Inquiry 5, no. 2 (1978): 291–307.
- Gross, John. Shylock: Four Hundred Years in the Life of a Legend. London: Chatto and Windus, 1992.
- Hazlitt, William. Characters of Shakespear's Plays. London: R. Hunter and C. and J. Ollier, 1817.
- Jones, Norman. God and the Moneylenders: Usury and Law in Early Modern England. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989.
- Lewalski, Barbara K. 'Biblical Allusion and Allegory in The Merchant of Venice.' Shakespeare Quarterly 13, no. 3 (1962): 327–43.
- Mahood, M. M., ed. The Merchant of Venice. The New Cambridge Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
- Newman, Karen. 'Portia's Ring: Unruly Women and Structures of Exchange in The Merchant of Venice.' Shakespeare Quarterly 38, no. 1 (1987): 19–33.
- Oz, Avraham. The Yoke of Love: Prophetic Riddles in The Merchant of Venice. Newark: University of Delaware Press; London: Associated University Presses, 1995.
- Shapiro, James. Shakespeare and the Jews. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.
- Shell, Marc. Money, Language, and Thought: Literary and Philosophical Economies from the Medieval to the Modern Era. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.
- Sinfield, Alan. 'How to Read The Merchant of Venice without Being Heterosexist.' In Alternative Shakespeares, Volume 2, edited by Terence Hawkes. London and New York: Routledge, 1996.
Written by the Poetry Codex editors. Updated 2026-10-19.