Most reviewers focus on the issue of religion - Shylock as a Jew - but fail to look past the issues of faith and consider the discussion of business ethics in "The Merchant of Venice".

I won't go into the racism and religions arguments because I have nothing new to say on those subjects, and they have been done to death by everyone from high school freshmen to PhD candidates.

As much as any other theme, greed and impact of greed on business are themes that don't get the consideration in this play. In the era of the collapse of the "Sub-Prime Lending Market" and all the related scams, scandals, and tragedies, and Enron, and the impending collapse of several commodities markets, the theme of greed is more relevant than ever. "Oh my daughter, oh my ducats" has a familiar ring as realtors wring their hands that their properties can only be sold at a loss due to their own thoughtless avarice. As Shylock demanded the pound of flesh he was owned, mortgage firms foreclosing on properties where the buyer was encouraged to lie on the application has familiar feel to it.

"Merchant of Venice" has comedy, and has several other themes, but greed is the least discussed, and has the air of the elephant at a cocktail party that everyone is too polite to mention. The play was written in a time when people would fund military ships in order to share in the loot and salvage the ship brought back. From this play alone, you could make the case that Shakespeare was the first Socialist, the first person to openly question the business ethics and practices of his time. By setting the play in Venice and making the personification of Greed a Jew, he gently deflects the audience to the real statement he's trying to make.

Aside from the possible political message, this is quite a play. The characters are lively and timeless as all the best of the Bard, and the themes of romance, wayward children, and justice are as timely and thought provoking now as when they were written.

Excellent and complex play with as much drama and social criticism as comedy.

E.M. Van Court

What exactly was Shakespeare attempting with The Merchant of Venice? Was Shakespeare anti-Semitic? Does the play promote anti-Semitism? What was Shakespeare's purpose in writing such a work?

As the play opens, the eponymous Antonio's dearest friend Bassanio laments his need of cash in order to seek the hand of Portia, the heiress of a noble Venetian family. Antonio is depressed, but it is only as the play progresses that we come to guess the reason for his depression: the marriage of this dear friend will, as such events always do, change the nature of their friendship and make it less intimate. As Antonio shows no other romantic interest in the play, and is alone and lonely, this depression possibly suggests that Antonio is homosexual.

But how would the cash enable Bassanio to engage in this pursuit? In fact we never learn precisely why the money is needed. There seems to be some kind of wealth or social class requirement for playing the game whose prize is Portia's hand and Bassanio needs to purchase the trappings that would, meretriciously, enable him to appear a member of the aristocracy.

As a successful merchant, Antonio is in a position to provide his friend with the desired funds. He doesn't have the cash on hand, however, as his wealth is tied up in his trading fleet at sea. But this fleet provides collateral, and the Jewish moneylender Shylock has access to the ready cash from his own store and from that of his friend and fellow Jew and moneylender, Tubal. But why should Shylock entertain a request from Antonio, a Christian who has reviled him and spat on him in the most public space in Venice for being a Jew, a public humiliation of the most egregious sort, as well as sadistically maligned him in a number of other ways, and now touts his moral superiority by noting that he lends to his own friends without interest. Responding to Antonio's sneering arrogance, Shylock offers to lend the money at no interest -- but demands an awful penalty should the borrower default -- the famous pound of flesh. And why should he not, in the unlikely event of Antonio's default, revenge himself?

Meanwhile, Antonio's and Bassanio's friends help their friend Lorenzo assist his lover Jessica, Shylock's daughter, in running away from her father's home, which she does, stealing a substantial sum in jewelry, including Shylock's most treasured possession, his late wife's gift to him.

Bassanio passes the test of the three boxes and wins the beautiful Portia's hand.

Antonio's ships are reported lost at sea and, defaulting, he is subject to the exulting Shylock's revenge. Shylock proceeds to have the default ajudicated, but the judge fails to appear. Portia arrives, dressed as the out-of-town judge whose fairness and erudition are well-known, and proceeds to play the unsuspecting Shylock with all of Antonio's contempt, to the delight of the vindictive Jew-hater Gratiano, depriving Shylock of his revenge. The "court" relieves Shylock of half his wealth and requires him to convert to Christianity. Antonio, who defaults, pays no penalty, and in the end his ships all complete their voyages to his substantial gain.

In this play, Shakespeare both mirrors the Jew-hatred of his contemporary society and, interestingly, portrays the implicitly parallel society of Venice and its Christian characters with an undeniable condemnation hidden beneath a scrim of identification: the sneering supercilious Antonio who claims the mantle of the generous Christian; the deceiver Bassanio, who borrows a lot of money with which to appear wealthy in order to deceive his future wife; the gratuitously vicious racist, Gratiano; Shylock's daughter and future Christian Jessica, who steals from her father his most intimate keepsake; the angelic aristocrat Portia who mendaciously assumes the identity of a trusted judge and turns the law on its head for the benefit of her husband's best friend and engages in some sadistic Jew-savaging herself to the delight of all the non-Jews present (and apparently Shakespeare imagined that the audience would enjoy it as well).

Shakespeare appears to be playing both sides of the coin here, both playing to popular Jew-hating, and creating a plot which not only exposes the amorality of the Christians but also depicts Shylock as a sometimes truly sympathetic character.

The play's structure is very familiar and guaranteed to please. Evil character plots to destroy innocent protagonist, but with the help of friends the evil character is outsmarted or outmaneuvered and gets his comeuppance, while the good people live happily ever after. Shakespeare though has created a curious drama indeed. The good folks are really quite distasteful characters, though Shakespeare puts beautiful words in their mouths. And the "villain" is in fact much more than an evil stereotype. Shylock is no paragon of decency, but he is the most fully realized human being in the play and commands the careful reader's or auditor's sympathy.

Shakespeare portrayed the Christian Venetians as corrupt characters while on the surface presenting them as the sympathetic actors in a more or less conventional drama of good Christians and bad Jews. A recent book bringing together current research on the life of Shakespeare notes that the most likely identity of the "Dark Lady" to whom Shakespeare wrote a number of passionate sonnets was a Jewish woman. This book (Shakespeare, by Michael Wood) notes that Shakespeare worked in a part of London in which he must have seen Jews frequently. Wood also notes that this play was written quickly at the time of Shakespeare's liaison with the Dark Lady. Interestingly, while Shakespeare was certainly aware that he was portraying the Christian characters as corrupt, he was also treating them, as the "good guys". He was playing a very strange game, both sympathizing with the Jew Shylock, contemning, in a less than explicit manner, the Christian characters, and at the same time portraying Shylock as the evil Jew and the Christians as the beneficient characters he expected his audience to identify with.

The case can be made that, far from producing an anti-Semitic play, Shakespeare wrote a play that, while pandering to the anti-Semitic prejudices of his audience, condemns the hypocritical ethically-compromised Jew-haters of Venice, and, by extension, London.

What exactly was Shakespeare attempting with The Merchant of Venice? Was Shakespeare anti-Semitic? Does the play promote anti-Semitism? What was Shakespeare's purpose in writing such a work?

As the play opens, the eponymous Antonio's dearest friend Bassanio laments his need of cash in order to seek the hand of Portia, the heiress of a noble Venetian family. Antonio is depressed, but it is only as the play progresses that we come to guess the reason for his depression: the marriage of this dear friend will, as such events always do, change the nature of their friendship and make it less intimate. As Antonio shows no other romantic interest in the play, and is alone and lonely, this depression possibly suggests that Antonio is homosexual.

But how would the cash enable Bassanio to engage in this pursuit? In fact we never learn precisely why the money is needed. There seems to be some kind of wealth or social class requirement for playing the game whose prize is Portia's hand and Bassanio needs to purchase the trappings that would, meretriciously, enable him to appear a member of the aristocracy.

As a successful merchant, Antonio is in a position to provide his friend with the desired funds. He doesn't have the cash on hand, however, as his wealth is tied up in his trading fleet at sea. But this fleet provides collateral, and the Jewish moneylender Shylock has access to the ready cash from his own store and from that of his friend and fellow Jew and moneylender, Tubal. But why should Shylock entertain a request from Antonio, a Christian who has reviled him and spat on him in the most public space in Venice for being a Jew, a public humiliation of the most egregious sort, as well as sadistically maligned him in a number of other ways, and now touts his moral superiority by noting that he lends to his own friends without interest. Responding to Antonio's sneering arrogance, Shylock offers to lend the money at no interest -- but demands an awful penalty should the borrower default -- the famous pound of flesh. And why should he not, in the unlikely event of Antonio's default, revenge himself?

Meanwhile, Antonio's and Bassanio's friends help their friend Lorenzo assist his lover Jessica, Shylock's daughter, in running away from her father's home, which she does, stealing a substantial sum in jewelry, including Shylock's most treasured possession, his late wife's gift to him.

Bassanio passes the test of the three boxes and wins the beautiful Portia's hand.

Antonio's ships are reported lost at sea and, defaulting, he is subject to the exulting Shylock's revenge. Shylock proceeds to have the default ajudicated, but the judge fails to appear. Portia arrives, dressed as the out-of-town judge whose fairness and erudition are well-known, and proceeds to play the unsuspecting Shylock with all of Antonio's contempt, to the delight of the vindictive Jew-hater Gratiano, depriving Shylock of his revenge. The "court" relieves Shylock of half his wealth and requires him to convert to Christianity. Antonio, who defaults, pays no penalty, and in the end his ships all complete their voyages to his substantial gain.

In this play, Shakespeare both mirrors the Jew-hatred of his contemporary society and, interestingly, portrays the implicitly parallel society of Venice and its Christian characters with an undeniable condemnation hidden beneath a scrim of identification: the sneering supercilious Antonio who claims the mantle of the generous Christian; the deceiver Bassanio, who borrows a lot of money with which to appear wealthy in order to deceive his future wife; the gratuitously vicious racist, Gratiano; Shylock's daughter and future Christian Jessica, who steals from her father his most intimate keepsake; the angelic aristocrat Portia who mendaciously assumes the identity of a trusted judge and turns the law on its head for the benefit of her husband's best friend and engages in some sadistic Jew-savaging herself to the delight of all the non-Jews present (and apparently Shakespeare imagined that the audience would enjoy it as well).

Shakespeare appears to be playing both sides of the coin here, both playing to popular Jew-hating, and creating a plot which not only exposes the amorality of the Christians but also depicts Shylock as a sometimes truly sympathetic character.

The play's structure is very familiar and guaranteed to please. Evil character plots to destroy innocent protagonist, but with the help of friends the evil character is outsmarted or outmaneuvered and gets his comeuppance, while the good people live happily ever after. Shakespeare though has created a curious drama indeed. The good folks are really quite distasteful characters, though Shakespeare puts beautiful words in their mouths. And the "villain" is in fact much more than an evil stereotype. Shylock is no paragon of decency, but he is the most fully realized human being in the play and commands the careful reader's or auditor's sympathy.

Shakespeare portrayed the Christian Venetians as corrupt characters while on the surface presenting them as the sympathetic actors in a more or less conventional drama of good Christians and bad Jews. A recent book bringing together current research on the life of Shakespeare notes that the most likely identity of the "Dark Lady" to whom Shakespeare wrote a number of passionate sonnets was a Jewish woman. This book (Shakespeare, by Michael Wood) notes that Shakespeare worked in a part of London in which he must have seen Jews frequently. Wood also notes that this play was written quickly at the time of Shakespeare's liaison with the Dark Lady. Interestingly, while Shakespeare was certainly aware that he was portraying the Christian characters as corrupt, he was also treating them, as the "good guys". He was playing a very strange game, both sympathizing with the Jew Shylock, contemning, in a less than explicit manner, the Christian characters, and at the same time portraying Shylock as the evil Jew and the Christians as the beneficient characters he expected his audience to identify with.

The case can be made that, far from producing an anti-Semitic play, Shakespeare wrote a play that, while pandering to the anti-Semitic prejudices of his audience, condemns the hypocritical ethically-compromised Jew-haters of Venice, and, by extension, London.

I recently re-read THE MERCHANT OF VENICE prior to attending The Colorado Shakespeare Festival's performance of this play under the summer stars here in Boulder. Shakespeare (1552-1616) produced this comedy on an uncertain date between 1594 and 1597 and published it in the First Folio in 1623.

The play tells the story of a merchant, Antonio, and the more famous villain, Shylock, a Jewish moneylender. When a young Venetian, Bassanio, requires money to travel to Belmont to court the beautiful Portia, he approaches Antonio for 3000 ducats. Because all of Antonio's ships are at sea, he approaches Shylock for a loan. Shylock, resentful of Antonio because he spat on him previously, proposes a malicious condition on the repayment of the loan: if Antonio is unable to repay the loan on time, Shylock will be entitled to take a pound of Antonio's flesh. Antonio accepts the abhorant condition. Bassanio leaves for Belmont, and Antonio's ships are then lost at sea, leaving him unable to satisfy the bond, and exposing him to Shylock's revenge. (Meanwhile, Shylock's daughter Jessica flees his home, converts to Christianity, and elopes with Lorenzo.)

In a romantic subplot, at Belmont, Portia's numerous suitors are required by her late father to choose one of three caskets for an opportunity (i.e., Portia's portrait) to marry Portia. Each suitor must agree, if he chooses incorrectly, to live out his life as a bachelor. After two suitors choose incorrectly, Bassanio makes the correct choice and wins Portia's hand in marriage.

The drama between Antonio and Shylock is resolved in the court of Venice, where Portia (disguised as a "doctor of the law") successfully nullifies the agreement between Antonio and Shylock just as Shylock is about to cut Antonio with his knife. Not even Bassanio recognizes Portia. By the end of the play, all wrongs are righted, and all couples are united by love and happiness. Antonio learns that his ships have returned safely after all.

G. Merritt

However venial Shakespeare's characters may appear in THE MERCHANT OF VENICE their venialty does not hold a candle to that of the inane Paris Hilton and her cohorts. When I was a sophomore at Xavier (a Catholic girls school in Phoenix) we produced the MERCHANT OF VENICE. The "mercy speech" had such an effect on me that I have never forgotten it. "The quality of mercy is not strained; it droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven upon the place beneath. 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest. It becomes the throned monarch better than his crown..." We should all remember this speech and take it to heart in these times. All of us should have this type of mercy. Don't like our President? Fine. He is still our President. Pray for wisdom. Remember the Mercy Speech! Buy the book!!!

I fully understand that some people have problems reading anti-semitic works (which the merchant of venice appears to be). for me though its not unusual. extensive study of Western Philosophy will certainly introduce you to plenty of Anti-Semitism. my take on this classic play is thus: it is along with Julius Ceasare my favorite shakespeare play.

short and full of plot twists this is a book you could easily envelope yourself in for a few days, and a great introduction into shakespeare as it allows for internal debate about the nature of racism, and who you relate to most.

for me the true hero of the play, and along with Cassius has some of the best dialogue, is Shylock. Shylock represents to me the knowing that not everything is a happy ending. which is something that we can all relate to. struggle and strife based on ones background is a topic that is always modern.

I wanted things to not work out for Shylock and when i found out he was screwed again, my sympathy and understanding for this character came full circle. he represented all the things that go wrong in ones life, no matter how certain or optimistic one may be. and just because he wanted revenge on antonio does not make him inhuman it actually makes him more human than any other character in the play.

the most important thing is that this was a terrible time in Shylocks life, but it was only three months. Shylock lives, becomes more humble, and still has the rest of his life to find happiness in whatever he percieves it to be.

I'm not entirely sure how one should set about reviewing a Shakespeare play. I recently reread "The Merchant of Venice" in order to reacquaint myself with the story so that I could read a related book. Despite many critics' beliefs that the play is anti-semetic, "The Merchant of Venice" is a timeless look at the role that material desires can play in our lives.

As one of Shakespeare's comedies, there is sure to be the sub-plots that include romantic intrigue and women in disguise. The play begins with the title merchant Antonio and his friend Bassiano making a deal with Shylock, a rich Jew. The deal is that Shylock will sponsor their merchant ships; if their ships should fail, Shylock can enact his revenge on Antonio by procuring one pound of his flesh. Meanwhile, Bassiano has fallen in love with Portia, a rich heiress, and tries to win her hand, while ultimately making sure that his friend Antonio doesn't lose his to Shylock.

Granted there is mistreatment of Shylock that is rooted in his Jewishness; but the jibes that are directed toward him deal more so with his attitude toward money than to his heritage. For Shylock is more concerned with his money than he is with his daughter; and when she runs away to marry a Christian, his sole concern is the jewels and money she stole from him. Shylock is a hateful man, not because he is a Jew, but because of his actions (and many seem to miss that). When Bassiano and Antonio's venture fails, Antonio is doomed to die at the hand of Shylock. But in typical Shakespearean comedy fashion, a woman in disguise wins the day and defeats Shylock's supposedly ingenous scheme.

I truly believe that some of the best scenes are not those that Shylock is in, yet whenever anyone speaks of "The Merchant of Venice" he is the main name mentioned. The scenes between Portia and her various suitors as they try to solve the riddle to winning her hand tells the reader much about the ways of man's thinking; it is the men who chose gold and silver that cannot court Portia. Rather it is the man who recognizes the worth in all that doesn't glitter who wins the prize.

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare has been quoted in a Mel Brooks movie had Shylock played by Al Pacino and has had many stage performances. I was on a high school trip to Stratford Ontario to see one of Shakespeares plays. That was an enjoyable experience. I do not find the play racist. It is still performed today showing that political correctness hasn't ruined everything yet. Imagine for example if some censor managed to ban the Simpsons how many disappointed children there would be. In Canada there is a 14 plus advisory flashed on the screen but my six year old daughter is allowed to watch the Simpsons anyway because the show makes her laugh. If you believe in freedom of speech please do not delete this reviewer.

Merchant may be one of Shakespeare's more challenging works for the modern reader. The obvious anti-semitism that underlies much of the plot and language and the forceable conversion of Shylock to Christianity near the end of the play is difficult to reconcile in our own age.
Nevertheless Merchant is categorized as a comedy and despite some of it's darker elements retains the classic comic devices of disguises , crossdressing and the denoument of festivity and multiple marriages.
What seperates this from some of the other comedies is the relatively unsympathetic characters of the major protaganists. As they celebrate their weddings and the fact that all is set right in the world the reader is left to wonder about the fate of the ostensibly evil character of Shylock. While the Merchant Antonio's fortunes are restored, Shylock is left without means. A statement perhaps regarding the practice of usury , but to me Antonio's enterprise and his willingness to commit to a bond with the moneylender when it suits him implies that Shylock has earned a rightful place in the economic world of Venice. It is his insistance on the strict adherence to his bond that ultimately leads to his undoing.
As Portia provides an idyllic description on the quality of Mercy, she and her circle dispense no mercy to Shylock in their judgement of him. Would Shylock , in an alternate ending, realizing his stubborness and forgiving the bond and being restored to his place in the community provided a more satisfying result in a comedy?
Merchant is as a result of Shakespeare's choice of ending one of if not the most controversial of his major works and is a play that leaves one in doubt regarding an appropriate reaction to it's ending.

"Merchant" is categorized among Shakespeare's comedies, primarily because of the romantic subplot that ends --as most of the Bard's comedies do-- in serial weddings. But, of course, it is far more than a typical romantic comedy. Shakespeare ostensibly intended to write about the complicated theme of exterior versus interior. The value of gold and money against the value of friendship and loyalty. Shylock, the Jewish moneylender is portrayed as greedy and more concerned about his money than he is about his own daughter.

But modern readers have a hard time sympathizing with Antonio the Merchant and his superficial and hateful friends, Bassanio, Gratiano, et al. They are racist, quick to judge, wasteful, and unconcerned about others. They are delighted to treat Shylock like a dog and to invent phony excuses for their own nasty behavior. Shylock is no innocent victim. Indeed, he brings about his own ruin. But in a play whose key passage is Portia's courtroom discourse on the quality of mercy, mercy and justice are hard to find in any character. Shakespeare's language is as powerful as ever in this play, but the unlikeable Shylock and the venom doled out to him by his sordid persecutors makes this play a stomach-churning challenge.