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The Merchant of Venice is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598.A merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan taken out on behalf of his dear friend, Bassanio, and provided by a Jewish moneylender, Shylock, with seemingly inevitable fatal consequences.
Shylock and Portia (1835) by Thomas Sully. Many modern readers and audiences have read the play as a plea for tolerance, with Shylock as a sympathetic character. Shylock's trial at the end of the play is a mockery of justice, with Portia acting as a judge when she has no real right to do so.
Antonio's character is emblematic of the themes present in the play, including the complexities of friendship, the consequences of prejudice, and the interplay between love and sacrifice. His interactions with other characters, particularly Shylock and Portia, contribute to the multifaceted layers of the narrative, making Antonio a significant ...
In this play, Shylock is a good man and the good friend of Antonio, the title character in Shakespeare's play. [10] They bond in their love of knowledge and mutual dislike of the antisemitism in their community. [11] [12] Shylock's demand for a pound of flesh is meant as a jest, but he cannot retract it. Both Shylock and Antonio are relieved ...
After Hazlitt's account, according to Bromwich, it became less easy to find a simple resolution to the problems in the play or to withhold entirely our sympathy for Shylock, [135] particularly in view of a passage like the following: Shylock is a good hater; "a man no less sinned against than sinning." If he carries his revenge too far, yet he ...
In act 2, scene 5, however, Gobbo is intercepted by Shylock, who berates him for his change of allegiance. Gobbo seizes on Shylock's repeated mentions of Jessica's name as a pretense to call her. When she arrives, Shylock gives her the keys to his house and the responsibility of keeping it safe while he dines with Antonio and Bassanio.
Even his two closest in hype, roles from The Confederacy and Love for Love, were roles designed to emulate Shylock. [citation needed] He played Shylock for nearly the next fifty years, as well as Iago in Othello and the Ghost in Hamlet. In Ben Jonson's Volpone, he played the part of Mosca.
The main character, Jewish actor Jon Davies, asserts that Shakespeare intended the character of Shylock to be played as a villain in The Merchant of Venice based on the attitudes towards Jews during the era he was writing; thus, past productions either presented Shylock as a clown or tragic victim while maintaining the hostile attitude towards Jews in classical Venice. [4]