The Merchant of Venice (Oxford School Shakespeare Series)

Rating:
Summary: Katherine's book review ( MOV anti semitic? NO WAY!)
Review: This play was actually intersting and had superb characterization. I actually found this work riveting - it had a great plot. I highly recommend this play because it is one of Sharkespeare's best. It is a great play to start with because it is easy to understand.

Rating:
Summary: One of Shakespeare's Best
Review: This play was actually intersting and had superb characterization. I actually found this work riveting - it had a great plot. I highly recommend this play because it is one of Sharkespeare's best. It is a great play to start with because it is easy to understand.

Rating:
Summary: GOOD EDITION: AND OTHER ALTERNATIVES
Review: Till today, every pen-stroke William Shakespeare made draws respect. This "Merchant Of Venice" is no exception. The story remains tasty despite its age.
However, since this particular edition harbours all the ingredients of Sixteenth Century English, many readers (particularly the young) who are only at-home with the contemporary English may find it hard to digest. In this case, reading the simpler 'Merchant Of Venice' part of "Lamb's Tales From Shakespeare" (adapted by Charles and Mary Lamb) would be nice, before journeying into this one.
Also, it may make more economic sense (for Shakespeare lovers) to add a couple of dollars atop the price of this book and instead, purchase "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare". There are many cheap, lightweight editions of this 'Complete Works'. And with it, you have access to all the Shakespearean works: those Comedies, Tragedies, and Poetries.

Rating:
Summary: The question is - is this a drama or a comedy?
Review: What scholars today call "The Problem Plays" seem to me to be problems more for us because of our changed sensibilities from those of Elizabethan London rather than problems in the plays themselves. "The Merchant of Venice" is called anti-Semitic by eminent scholars such as Harold Bloom. In our post-Holocaust age and our sensitivity to stereotypes of all sorts, Shylock bothers us in a way not dissimilar to watching the great Al Jolson perform in blackface. That is, it is clearly the work of a great entertainer, but it jars us, makes us wince, and we are (justly) unable to watch with the same enjoyment as the audience for whom the work was created.

Still, this is Shakespeare and Shylock is immortal. When I read through the play, I place Shylock as "the other" rather than as a caricature of the Jewish race. More than that, he is simply a vicious person irrespective of his ethnic ties and origins. I do like Bloom's insistence that this play was written as a dark comedy and was performed as such for centuries. The editor of this edition, John Russell Brown also states this. At some time around the 19th century, Shylock acquired pathos and the play has been performed as a drama ever since.

Does it work as a drama? You will have to answer that for yourself. However, if you insist on a moral drama you will have a great many moral contradictions to settle that do not matter as much if the play is done more for simple cleverness and laughs. Can we really take seriously the casket game that Portia's late father left her as the way she must select her spouse? Does Antonio (the Merchant of Venice) seem a proper embodiment of Christian values?

To me, the play does seem awfully light hearted with all of its darkness given to Shylock. He is a villain with infinitely more substance than Snidely Whiplash, but provides much the same function. He must be hated; he must be spat upon and jeered by the audience to fill his role. And he must lose in the end. Not because others are more virtuous (any serious analysis of the play shows everyone in the play wanting in virtue), but simply because he is the bad guy.

Portia is the wonder of the play. Her glow is so bright that it is obvious she is light to Shylock's darkness. Her defeat of Shylock is acceptable in a comedy, in a serious drama she seems to have gone too far considering what is really involved.

In any case, this play has delighted audiences for centuries and will continue to do so. It is a great read and this critical edition aids the reader's understanding. The opening essay is fine and the appendices showing the various sources of the tale are also interesting in helping us see the genius of Shakespeare in what he developed on his own and how he wove the various components into this masterpiece.