The Merchant of Venice Context PDF

# The Merchant of Venice: Context ## Housekeeping * Written about 1596. * First recorded performance about 1605. * Write the full title of the play first. Then underline the word "Merchant". * Take notes! ## The Jewish Population in the 16th and 17th Century Jewish people were expelled from Eng...

# The Merchant of Venice: Context ## Housekeeping * Written about 1596. * First recorded performance about 1605. * Write the full title of the play first. Then underline the word "Merchant". * Take notes! ## The Jewish Population in the 16th and 17th Century Jewish people were expelled from England in 1290 by King Edward 1. * There were only a few Jewish individuals in Elizabethan London. * They would have been outwardly converted (to Christianity) or practiced in private. * This was a common occurrence in many European nations. * Most of the Jewish people in England were Portuguese or Spanish in descent. **Doctor Roderigo Lopez**, Physician-in-Chief to Queen Elizabeth, was a famous "Jew". * In 1594 he was accused of conspiring to poison the Queen. * He was sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered. * He died protesting his innocence. * It is hypothesized that this inspired the character of Shylock. The Jewish people were regarded with disdain, suspicion and were traditionally accused of killing Christian children to use their blood to bake the unleavened bread eaten at Passover. * Foxe, a minister from the time, preached a sermon which gave a vivid sense of the disturbing beliefs Elizabethans held about Jews. * He spoke of their "heinous abominations, insatiable butcheries, treasons, frenzies, and madness". While there were undoubtedly Jews in England (at least secretly), Shakespeare's audience lived in an England where for the last three hundred years there had been very few "public" Jews. * Their beliefs were based on ignorance and fear of the "other". * This is evident in his construction of Shylock. * Shylock's portrayal is remarkably sympathetic for its time. * We cannot blanketly say Shakespeare is "anti-Semitic". ## Usury In European countries where Jews were permitted to live (including Venice), they were not allowed to own land and were severely restricted in ways of making a living. * While Jews were forbidden by their own law to lend money at interest to other Jews, they were allowed to do so for gentiles ("non-Jews"). * **Usury**, the technical name for lending money at interest, was one of the only trades Shylock was permitted to "do". * Jews were generally despised for lending money at interest. The nobility and traders needed large amounts of money to finance building projects and other enterprises. * In some areas Jews were welcome and their activities provided an impetus to the economy. * When it came to repaying these loans, it was not unknown for rulers to expel the Jews who were forced to leave, having forfeited all their money to their debtors. ## Venice In Shakespeare's time, Venice was a trading port for exotic goods from the East. * It was a hub for silks, jewels and the slave trade. * Venice's geographical position between Europe and the East put it at the center of trade and commerce. * It was the richest city in the world and one of the most multicultural. Venice had one of the world's major banking systems at the time, as trade required the lending of money. * It was the cosmopolitan capital of the Mediterranean. * It attracted foreigners, including Shakespeare. * It was a "party city" or "pleasure capital" compared to England. Some historians theorize that Shakespeare may have visited Venice during his "lost years," but the fact that canals are never mentioned in the play suggests his knowledge of Venice is both theoretical and glamourized. ## The City Venice was an independent republic and had its own laws. * It was ruled over by the Duke (or Doge) and a number of noble families. * It had a stable and orderly political system enforced strictly and with fairness. * Its importance as a port attracted individuals from different cultures, making it a melting pot of ethnicities. The law, however much Jews were treated with suspicion , applied to all. * Jewish people were only allowed to live in the small, high-walled "Ghetto Novo", the first recorded ghetto in Europe. ## Take-Away Venice in the play must be viewed through a legal and mercantile lens. * The characters speak of everything, including love and friendship, in terms of commerce and transactions. * The language of the play is saturated with economic terms. * Interactions with money are one of the main experiences of the play. * This is also true of the law. * Most communities or countries are often aligned on faith or common values, but given its multicultural nature, the common denominator of society in Venice was money. All humans were equal in the economic marketplace and in the court. ## Comedy * "Merchant of Venice" is traditionally classed as a Shakespearean comedy. * This label has been debated for obvious historical reasons, especially given the Holocaust. Comedies often involve mistaken identities, the reversal of genders, a Mediterranean setting, young lovers (whose parents do not approve of their union), inversions (e.g., status), and multiple marriages as an ending. * Technically, the story of Bassanio and Portia's courtship (and then Nerissa and Gratiano and Lorenzo and Jessica) is the main component/plot of the play. * Shylock is simply a "comedic villain". * *He is complex and three-dimensional. * * He is the most interesting and memorable part of the play. He is often mistaken as a titular merchant of the play. * He is not. * **Antonio** is the merchant of Venice. Comedies are not without tragic and darker elements. * It is the darker elements that allow for catharsis at the end of the play. ## Women in the 16th and 17th Century The worldview of Medieval and Renaissance Europe on the eve of the Scientific Revolution was dominated by the idea that all of Creation existed in a hierarchical relationship and that absolutely everything could be classified as either above or below any other thing in the universe. * All entities existed in a linear ordering, or hierarchy, of increasing greatness, culminating with God. The human world, about three steps down from the top, had its own hierarchical microcosm. * At any given time, the King or the Pope was at the top, depending on one's faith and politics. * Women occupied a spot just below their male counterparts. * At the bottom of the human world were the lowest slaves or savages. Women were assumed to be the inferiors of men. * This makes a character like Portia so unusual. * She appears to be both more affluent and more intelligent than her husband Bassanio. * Her intelligence is evident where she plays her role in the courtroom scene. * A common device used in comedies is the inversion or the opposite of social norms. * Portia's disguise and her ability to outsmart her husband are used for comic effect. * This provides Shakespeare with the means to demonstrate the "quality of mercy" . * She concludes the action on an appropriately upbeat note. There is a degree of paradox in the fact that the wisest and most articulate character in the play is forced to disguise herself as a man because her position as a woman renders her unable to actively participate in the court system as a lawyer. Although there were some concessions for inherited wealth, property was generally given to the man at marriage. * This is evident in Portia's father's concern with protecting his property from suitors. * Women mostly played a subordinate role to men. * Portia's caskets are symbolic of the lack of choice experienced by Elizabethan women. * Her father exerts his control over her marital choice from beyond the grave in the manner that he would have done during his lifetime. * Women in Venice were commodities in a similar vein to the merchant trade of the city. ## Analysis You must analyze and write throughout this topic using two lenses: **Rubric:** * Individual * Collective * Assumptions * Anomalies * Paradoxes * Emotions * Cultures * Lives **PAC-V ** * Purpose * Audience * Context * Values