814 words | 2 Pages
In ‘The Merchant of Venice’ written by William Shakespeare there are three caskets: of Gold, Silver and Lead. Introducing them the caskets play a powerful dramatic significance to the play as it helps justify the mindset of her suitors which come ‘from the four corners...
830 words | 2 Pages
The definition of loyalty is a strong feeling of support or allegiance. In The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare, dependability, integrity, honesty, and faithfulness are key character traits that exhibit the true meaning of loyalty. Each one of these traits demonstrates how a character...
1505 words | 3 Pages
‘The Merchant of Venice’ is a comedic play written by William Shakespeare during the time of 1596 or 1597, when there was a constant altercation between that of Christians and Jews within the Venetian society. Shakespeare wrote the play in a time where Jews were...
2314 words | 5 Pages
Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare wrote plays in England during a time when Jews were banned from the country, making it unlikely that Jewish characters in their plays would amount to more than anti-Semitic stereotypes. Both Marlowe’s Jew of Malta and Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice...
2101 words | 4 Pages
In Shakespearean plays, the female roles are consistently more complex than the male ones, and though the protagonists are often male, the action is frequently directed by a woman. Though the female characters are often perceived to have a definite aspect of craftiness to their...
996 words | 2 Pages
Perhaps one of William Shakespeare’s most famous comedies, The Merchant of Venice presents the game of three caskets with the high stakes of marriage to the wealthy and beautiful Portia if you choose correctly, or a life of solitude should you fail. The character Bassanio...
3966 words | 8 Pages
William Shakespeare’s The Comical History of the Merchant of Venice depicts an odd juxtaposition of love in the romantic sense with wealth in the monetary sense. The characters in the text acknowledge both senses as valuable virtues, yet comparatively, said virtues are measured against each...
1421 words | 3 Pages
Elizabethans studied the Bible according to typological doctrine. Typology sought to resolve the problem of broken continuity between Old and New Testaments by positioning the Old Testament (the Old Law) as the foreshadowing of its own fulfillment by the New Testament (the New Law). A...
2103 words | 4 Pages
Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a play that reveals its scaffolding. Behavior and motive are explained for comic consistency and unity, almost as if the playwright did not trust our capacity to intuit them. This is seen most starkly in Act V, Scene I,...
2276 words | 5 Pages
There are many instances where if one were not laughing, they would be crying; that is to say, the difference between the laughable and the lamentable is oftentimes narrow. In fact, the irony behind what is tragic and what is comedic is naturally linked by...
2128 words | 4 Pages
Perhaps no other play in Shakespeare’s repertoire has provoked greater controversy regarding its fundamental moral and religious attitudes than The Merchant of Venice. To understand Shakespeare’s treatment of the Jews in this play, we need to understand Judaism as seen in the Elizabethan era. The...
1230 words | 2 Pages
In William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice it is important to notice that the title is not The Tragedy of the Merchant of Venice, but rather, just The Merchant of Venice. Although many people find it a rich tapestry of controversial topics, one must wonder...
2793 words | 6 Pages
Among the many and varied plotlines interwoven throughout Shakespeare’s comedy, The Merchant of Venice, the story of Bassanio’s rivalled affections for his friend Antonio and for his eventual wife Portia is one of the more significant. Bassanio begins in the story firmly in the affections...
3211 words | 7 Pages
Few Shakespearean plays have aroused such controversy and debate throughout the centuries, as has The Merchant of Venice. This potentially tragic play masks itself in comedy, giving its audience a glance at the inherent social prejudices of Renaissance Europe. But just at the moment when...
1537 words | 3 Pages
It is often observed that William Shakespeare’s comedies feature some uncomfortable scenes that leave audiences unsure as to whether characters are participating in harmless, theatrical farce or a meaner brand of mockery that borders on the cruel. Such scenes involve trickery that seems funny enough...
1844 words | 4 Pages
As a playwright, William Shakespeare has few, if indeed any, colleagues of equal renown. He skillfully created works of incredible diversity; some tragic, others historical, and yet others comedic. Of this last genre, Shakespeare’s play, The Merchant of Venice is an example. Through an excerpt...
1086 words | 2 Pages
The Merchant of Venice has been interpreted over time as both a defense and an attack on Jews. (“Shylock”) While it would seem improbable that Shakespeare was forward thinking enough to completely reject the anti-Semitic sentiment of his time, the play is too complex to...
1660 words | 3 Pages
The daughters of Elizabethan England were predominantly subject to their father’s wishes. This is particularly evident in terms of the main female character, Portia, who must obey her father even after his death: O me, the word ‘choose’! I may neither choose who I would...
1672 words | 3 Pages
There is a method to the madness that is Shakespearean Comedy. Every Comedy has an outline and “The Merchant of Venice” is no exception. This highly social dilemma centers on the pursuit of love and money and concludes with the joyous acquisition of just that....
912 words | 2 Pages
In The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare crafts a dynamic female character uncommon to his collection of plays. Portia, the lovely and wealthy heiress, exemplifies stereotypical feminine qualities but also exhibits independent and intelligent thought. Most of Shakespeare’s female roles function as static characters designed to...
1340 words | 3 Pages
Enter the Jew. In this way does Shakespeare usher the character Shylock into his play The Merchant of Venice, and here begins the greatest controversy that plagues this work. The Elizabethan era, the time in which Shakespeare lived, was a time brimming with hostility toward...
2853 words | 6 Pages
In ‘The Motives of Eloquence’, Lantham describes Shakespearean drama as the art of “superposition”. One arc of action is performed over others so that “[d]ramatic motive is stronger than ‘real’, serious motive”. The justification of a characters action occurs as theatre. “Drama, ceremony, is always...
2222 words | 5 Pages
In “The Merchant of Venice”, William Shakespeare explores the cities of contrast which are Venice and Belmont. These two locations in Italy are so antithetic to each other that even characters’ behaviours fluctuate from city to city because of this disparity between them. This Shakespeare...
2056 words | 4 Pages
Art reflects the social context it was created in, and so can be useful in determining social opinions of different time periods. Live theatre is no different, and the way minority characters were written and portrayed on stage can be valuable to understanding how they...
1323 words | 3 Pages
William Shakespeare includes a Duke to represent the utmost authority figure in many of his plays. In The Comedy of Errors and The Merchant of Venice, both Dukes hold complete control—or, at least, what they perceive to be complete control—over their respective regions. Shakespeare uses...
1313 words | 3 Pages
To Read or Not To Read: Analysis of Discrimination in The Merchant of Venice The Merchant of Venice is a painful read—much more than Shakespeare’s other plays—because it portrays oppression without taking a stance one way or the other. Portia is undermined by societal gender...
1136 words | 2 Pages
An Eye for an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind Here in Canada, we do not have the death penalty as punishment. Our judicial system shows mercy even to the worst of criminals by sparing their lives. Yet even to this day, in some countries...
394 words | 1 Page
Merchant of Venice is a play in the 16th century that was written by the infamous writer, Shakespeare. Just like many other of his play, the story is The Merchant of Venice is classified as a tragicomedy, because it shares features in common with comedies...
918 words | 2 Pages
Merchant of Venice is a play written by William Shakespeare in the 1600s. The Merchant of Venice is a play that focuses on love and revenge in a world of religious intolerance between the Christian and Jewish population of Venice. The Merchant of Venice contains...
698 words | 2 Pages
Inequality is a theme that is continuously occurring in The Merchant of Venice, a play written by William Shakespeare in the 16th century, which portrays racism and prejudice that till this day, remains an important symbol of unequal opportunities and discrimination against a certain group...
