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The Merchant of Venice

William Shakespeare

Start date: January 1, 2025

Finish date: January 31, 2025

Discussion: Current Group Reads

Why we're reading this: January 2025 Old School Classic Group Read

September 2016 Old School Classic Group Read

[close] January 2025 Old School Classic Group Read

September 2016 Old School Classic Group Read

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May 18, 2015 Melanti rated it really liked it

Shelves: play, classics, group-reads

This is such a problematic play for a modern non-antisemitic audience!

Shylock is cast as a devilish figure. He's a Jewish moneylender who is spit on, insulted, hated, fed pork, and otherwise mistreated. And yet when the heroes want to borrow money, they still turn to him - insulting him all the while.

What happens to him? He loans money to someone who despises him for doing so, then that person's close friend elopes with his daughter and in the process steals a good chunk of his fortune. And th This is such a problematic play for a modern non-antisemitic audience!

Shylock is cast as a devilish figure. He's a Jewish moneylender who is spit on, insulted, hated, fed pork, and otherwise mistreated. And yet when the heroes want to borrow money, they still turn to him - insulting him all the while.

What happens to him? He loans money to someone who despises him for doing so, then that person's close friend elopes with his daughter and in the process steals a good chunk of his fortune. And then he becomes a laughing stock in the town - with yet more of this same person's friends insinuating that the family jewels he lost weren't his literal ones.

Even when they're begging him to spare Antonio's life they can't resist piling on further insults by telling him he has the soul of a rabid wolf!

You almost can't blame him for his bitterness.

And yet... I don't believe Shakespeare meant Shylock to be a sympathetic creature or even a human figure - despite how he can seem to a modern audience who wants to feel sympathy.

Even Shylock's famous "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech, which seems moving out of context, follows up his "If you prick us, do we not bleed?" with "If you wrong us, shall we not revenge?". It starts off seeming to be a plea for the humanity of Jews and then is undermined and becomes a ranting rationalization for why he's justified in demanding Antonio's life.

And even the ending is awful to Shylock!
(view spoiler)

I'm going to go see a live production of this play, and I'm really eager to see how they handle the antisemitic angle.

It's definitely a play with a lot of ambiguity that any good director would love take advantage of. ...more

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