Essay on

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

by William Shakespeare

Title

Sources

Date of composition

Plot summary (contents)

Psychological analysis of the characters.

he title of this Shakespearean work is very emblematic and it was in hand of various discussions.

The object of discoursing is just the role of Antonio, that is "The merchant of Venice", the one who gives the name to the drama: the problem consists of understanding why the renowned author chose just this character on behalf of its work.

In fact, any hypothetical reader of "The merchant of Venice" would immediately note the limited importance of Antonio, particularly towards other protagonists as Shylock and Portia; this doesn't naturally deny his importance in a narrative context which make him a key-ure and which wouldn't exist without him.

But he isn't the effective protagonist of the situation described; not only because he hasn't the sufficient number of cues but because he hasn't the moral stature for this role.

According to the most accredited exations, Shakespeare originally found the central nucleus of his drama on the theme of friendship, personified here by Bassanio and Antonio, a feeling that had to repeat the descriptions of the mythical friendship between Achille and Patroclo, Oreste and Pilade.

Only in this sense the merchant of Venice can be considered a real protagonist: he pushes his affection till the heroism, sacrificing his life for the friend Bassanio without any remorse.

In "The Merchant of Venice" Shakespeare creates two opposite and conflicting worlds, symbolised by two places, one real and concrete, Venice, the other imaginary, Belmont.

Every character takes his cultural and behavioural roots in one of this two limits; the title marks the undoubted belonging of Antonio to the realm of the reality, of the day and of the material certainties.

Venice is the realm of the middle class, commercial, where the money passes from an hand to another, where the financial deals are discussed to dinner or during luxurious banquets between friends, where a marriage means the guarantee of future financial stability.

Belmont is the night and imaginary realm of the nice Portia, rich, skilful, virtuous, manipulator and judge of punishments or treasures, a woman - sorceress who personally replaces, alone, the complicated judicial system of Venice.

Venice is the city of the Renaissance, of the author's age; Belmont lives in the night, in the Middle Ages, in an archaic time, nearly fantastic where the illusions and the changes pass one after the other:

Portia

This night methinks is but the daylight sick,

It looks a little paler. 'Tis a day

Such as the day is when the sun is hid.

(V, i, 124)

Shylock psychologically belongs to Belmont but he physically lives in the middle class society of merchants, in the Renaissance, in Venice and here his delineated identity becomes unclear and the bad person, whose passions are too violent to find space in this world, at last becomes a victim persecuted in any way by his antagonists performed by Gratiano during the trial.

he most immediate and complete source of Shakespeare for this drama is the Italian short-story writing. "The merchant of Venice" is inspired by the I novella of the IV day of the "Pecorone" written by Sir Giovanni Fiorentino (1558), derived from one of the stories of the "Gesta Romanorum".

Shakespeare found here the setting in Venice, the town of Belmont, the central theme of the Jewish usurer, the idea of the pound of meat and the plot of the three boxes, typical of the oriental short-story writing.

The "Zelauto", written by Anthony Munday (1580), and the "Decameron", by Boccaccio, were probably other works that the author held in consideration.

Many reviewers have often noticed that the "necessity" for Bassanio of those three thousand ducats which change the comedy in tragedy, isn't real (contrary to the complementary short-story written by Sir Giovanni Fiorentino) because the character need only to go from Venice to Belmont and it seems difficult that this involves so vast expenses.

The most reliable hypothesis is to consider this "Shakespearean inconsistency" as the recourse to a theatrical convention, which the Elizabethan public certainly accepted as a part of that pact between author and spectator, typical of the classical and Renaissance theatre.

Moreover, a great and not expected knowledge of the classical studies, of the Greek and Latin mythology appears in Shakespeare since the first cues.

Solonio

Not in love neither: then let us say you are sad

Because you are not merry; and 'twere as easy

For you to laugh and leap, and say you are merry

Because you are not sad. Now by tow-headed Janus,

Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time:

Some that will evermore peep through their eyes

And laugh like parrots at a bagpiper,

And other of such vinegar aspect

That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile

Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.

(I, i, 47-55)

n 1598 the drama was inscribed to the Stationers' Register with the title "The Merchant" or "The Jew" of Venice, but only in order to claim the copyright and to prevent unauthorised publications.

When the comedy was really published, in 1600, the apparent confusion between the Merchant and the Jew is exceeded.

These two elements are sufficient in order to determine an extreme of the composition at least: the 1598.

The other extreme is less certain but the majority of the critics fixes it in the second half of 1596. Instead other reviewers, considering the anti-Semitic atmosphere in the opera, establish the date of composition in 1594, when Roderigo Lopez, a converted Jew who was the personal doctor of the Queen Elisabeth, was executed after that he was accused of having tried to poison her.

he merchant of Venice is a drama divided into five acts according to the Shakespearean canon and it counts on a total of twenty scenes, characterised by different length.

In the first act are put the bases of the story and all the main characters appear on the stage: Bassanio, eager to marry a rich heiress, goes to Antonio, although he has already incurred in numerous debts with him, in order to borrow three thousand ducats.

Portia and Nerissa reveal to the reader the strange invention of the three boxes during a nice dialogue in the second scene and they animatedly discuss about the suitors of the beautiful queen of Belmont. In the meanwhile Antonio, who hasn't the sufficient cash for the friend at that moment, goes with him to Shylock, who s a personal revenge towards the Christian enemy, destined to give a pound of his meat in case of "unsuccessful" compensation of the loan.

The second is the longest act in the whole tragedy and bases itself on twenty scenes.

The vicissitudes of Antonio, Bassanio and Shylock, which, however, remain on the background, are left out by the author for a while; Lorenzo reveals to the spectator his love for Jessica, Shylock's daughter, who has towards him the same feelings and with whom she runs away from the father's home; Portia is busy with the Prince of Arragon and the Prince of Morocco, her suitors, who fall, however, in her father's trap, choosing the wrong boxes.

In this context the comic situation of the drama develops (in the second scene): Lancelot, servant to Shylock, and his father, the old Gobbo are the protagonists.

The opera continues with the presentation of a very serious accident: the ships, which would guarantee to Antonio the money to put out the debt with Shylock, are lost with their precious cargo.

The second scene, settled in Belmont, has Bassanio as protagonist, who, trying one's luck, chooses that box of plumb which will make him consort of the beautiful Portia. This moment of joy is suddenly interrupted by a letter from Antonio that informs the friend about the unlucky end of the only financial resource of the merchant of Venice.

Bassanio takes leave of Portia who ensures him her financial availability in order to ransom Antonio from Shylock: but the Jew hasn't the intention of doing it and he claims the pound of Christian meat; in the meanwhile, unbeknown to her husband, the beautiful Portia s the strategy which will bring to the happy ending of the drama.

In the second-last act the feared trial takes place: during the first part of the audience with the doge, Antonio gives up all hope for his salvation; however, in the second scene, an unexpected event upsets the sentence. Portia, wearing a toga of lawyer, and Nerissa, her secretary, bring an escape (he can't cut a pound of his meat without shedding a drop of his blood) for the merchant of Venice, who will preserve his bodily integrity and the money offered before.

Afterwards the astute lawyer will accuse Shylock of having deliberately plotted against a citizen of Venice, giving rise to the confiscation of part of his properties, which he won't completely lose with his conversion to the Christianity and other promises.

The last part of this act is dedicated to the joke of the two rings, implemented by Portia and Nerissa towards their husbands.

The whole situation is explained in the only scene of the V act of the drama when the ladies will reveal the that brought to the salvation of Antonio who, among other things, will discover that his ships are safe.

reat representative of the Elizabethan theatre, Shakespeare had a continuous success that wasn't darkened even by the perplexities of someone (J. Dryden., A. Pope, Voltaire) expressed about the irregularities of his theatre, the geographical inconsistencies and about the anachronisms contained in the text.

But a full comprehension was reached only in the last two centuries thanks to a skilled study of this author in all his shades, from the linguistic analysis to the psychoanalytical inquiry about the characters, in whom all the manifestations of the human soul are represented, both the most elevated and the most despicable.

A great proof of this is present in "The Merchant of Venice" too, where we can find the typical opposition between the good and the wicked (according to the Shakespearean opinion), between Antonio and Shylock, between the merchant and the usurer, a contrast clearly marked by the opposition between Venice and Belmont too.

Antonio is just a hinge-character between these two worlds. He belong to the middle-class society of the real Venice but there is a strong desire in him to escape and to get in the archaic and fabulous world of Belmont, to change himself in a "courageous paladin of the justice" in order to help a young fortune hunter, spendthrift, recreating in his concrete world characterised by limited, and sometimes, mean feelings, the heroic and endless friendships of the ancient world of the myths and the fables; he was afflicted by a melancholy without an apparent reason that seems improbable to the spectator / reader.

Gratiano

You look not well, Signor Antonio.

You have too much respect upon the world;

They lose it that do buy it with much care.

Believe me, you are marvellously changed.

Antonio

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano,

A stage where every man must play a part,

And mine a sad one.

(I, i, 73-79)

Antonio, since the title, is the main character of the whole drama but is, for me, the most doubtful and the most insincere too.

In fact, all the characters have a personal purpose: Bassanio is actually looking for a large dowry and for financial stability; Shylock is plotting his revenge against the "good" Merchant of Venice; Portia and Nerissa help their husbands in order to get the future happiness with them; Jessica and Lorenzo want the wedding; the only one who hasn't an aim during the whole development of the events, it is him.

This protagonist - not protagonist wanders literally for all the acts and the scenes of the drama, without a clear reason of existence, that is actually provided to him only by the story and by the narrative context but not by his necessities.

Nowadays we can reverse and revalue the terms of this Shakespearean drama and we can exchange the roles of the various characters.

A strong contrast between two different worlds and two different protagonists will always exist: on one hand a good man made bad by the insensitive society in which he lives, Shylock, on the other a bad man made good by that same society, Antonio.

Having said this, I don't really want to deny the wickedness of the usurer that, however, for me, is justified, for the most partly, by the hate and the violence of the Christians against the Jews.

But the perfidy of the man, described by the author as a good, who is stained with misdeeds and evil actions, isn't justifiable for nothing.

All the opera is pervaded by an Anti-Semitic atmosphere which seems disconcerting to the eyes of a reader / spectator of today. But it is still more incredible that the winner of the whole story is just Antonio, the most intolerant of all the characters as we can see in many meaningful cues:

Shylock

Signor Antonio, many time and oft

In the Rialto you have rated me

About my moneys and my usances.

Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,

(For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe).

You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,

And split upon my Jewish gaberdine,

And all for use of that which is mine own.

Well then, it now appears you need my help.

Go to then. You come to me and you say,

"Shylock, we would have moneys," you say so,

You, that did void your rheum upon my beard

And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur

Over your threshold, moneys is your suit.

What should I say to you? Should I not say,

"Hath a dog money? Is it possible

A cur can lend three thousand ducats?" Or

Shall I bend low, and in a bondman's key,

With bated breath and whispering humbleness

Say this:

"Fair sir, you spat 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.

If thou wilt

(I, in, 104-l27)

If  having chosen to perform the ure of a bad man with a Jew, makes "The Merchant of Venice" an anti-Semitic comedy is hard to say.

The general impression is that the drama doesn't communicate anti-Semitic feelings but it registers a strong atmosphere of anti-Semitism perhaps neither shared nor accepted but taken for granted, expressed as an aspect of the society.

In other words, here, Shakespeare, who wrote "The Merchant of Venice" in an anti-Semitic atmosphere, as I said before, playing on the perfection with his negative capability, his ability of making objective without reveal himself ever, tangles up the cards and he offers anti-Semitic and not anti-Semitic elements lowered in a background that he objectively registers as anti-Semitic.

For example, when Lorenzo praises Jessica because she escaped from the father's home robbing his treasures, it isn't hard to notice in those cues the irony against the boyfriend or rather against the blind dullness of the anti-Semitism.

Shylock is the real king of the drama; his image undertakes immediately the stature of the tragic protagonist, who takes on himself a pitiable role of accuser. With a pressing rhetoric, shoal, implacable, the Jew reverses the charges, the offences and the humiliations that the Christian merchants had addressed to him and to his people.

Using the argument of the equality between Jews and Christians, that is the REAL cause of the peroration (and he doesn't revenge equal rights but only equalities fundamental and indisputable), he comes to the affirmation that, obviously, is the base of the cue: he takes teaching for his revenge just from the Christians .

Shylock

[ . ] I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? We are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge! The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

(III, i, 63-69)

Only when he hopes to see her daughter died provided her body is adorned with the subtracted jewels, Shylock seems to lose his tragic stature of victim and he seems to change completely himself into the bad sorcerer who interweaves plots of death.

But here the character has changed dimension, he has done the ideal route from Venice to Belmont: he has gone away in spirit from the Venice of the Merchant, so that he can only express the world of the archetypal and inhuman passions.

In the end of the drama, Shylock is forgotten; he is unequivocally and purposely absent, ignored by all the characters and by Jessica who seems to have broken any bonds with the father to the point that she doesn't remember him any more; the image is of a men tragically defeated, in the life and in the attempt at ransom himself, a victim - the only victim - unfairly condemned to the punishment of the damnatio memoriae.

Portia is another emblematic and interesting protagonist of "The Merchant of Venice".

There is only a character, amongst the ones who cross the invisible door between Venice and Belmont, that can do this with full consciousness and deliberation, sure of his return: it is just the beautiful queen of Belmont, the only real element, determining and unifying of the many events described on the stage.

Rich, great, Portia is, all the same, tired of this world (II, ii, 1-2). But where the melancholy without reasons of Antonio seems unrelated with the character, her tiredness is personal, shiny, an Hamletic tiredness, concrete. Hamlet considers the worlds a prison that suffocates him, Portia a greatness that wearies her.

So, depreciated by this world, she begins to create another one, she begins to imagine the fabulous realm of Belmont, where she lays down the laws and where she governs the affections and from the fantastic heights of which she let her judge the simple mortals.

On the other characters there is a little to say: Bassanio is a weak because he is a lavish too who squanders his and the other's people properties and who want to get married to a rich heiress in order to live the expensive life of a time again; Nerissa and Gratiano fill up the scene and they contribute to exaggerate the joke of the two rings; Lorenzo and Jessica are useful to the author in order to increase Shylock's "wickedness".

All the characters and, above all, these, who are characterised by a poor independence, aren't subjected to particular evolutions and developments during the drama.

Shylock, even though he is presented to the spectator / reader as the accuser, is actually a victim from the beginning till the end and he will remain a victim.

Antonio is presented as the good merchant of Venice but he really is a perfidious and egoist man who makes only his interest and the advantages of the ones who consider themselves Christians.

A pleasant and curious drama: fairer with a pound of human meat less.