The Merchant of Venice | Criticism

  • Overview

    In the first excerpt, Frank Kennode presents a concise overview of The Merchant of Venice, initially examining Shakespeare's punning of the term "gentle" and discussing the word's various meanings throughout the play. E. F. C. Ludowyk, in the second excerpt, offers a brief synopsis of the main characters in play, emphasizing the attributes which involve them in situations of trial or test.

  • Usury

    John Draper provides historical background on English Jews and the practice of usury (money-lending for interest) as they existed in Shakespeare's time to prove that the chief concern of The Merchant of Venice is conflicting economic ideals rather than race or religion.

  • Dualities

    In this excerpt, Marvin Felheim identifies several dualities in The Merchant of Venice, including joy and sadness, Venice and Belmont, Jew versus Christian, and Old Testament justice against New Testament mercy. Felheim also examines three significant episodes in The Merchant of Venice—the bond plot, the casket plot, and the ring plot—describing their significance to the overall structure of the play.

  • Bond and Choice

    In this excerpt, William Leigh Godshalk discusses the unity of the The Merchant of Venice in terms of the Pound of Flesh story and the Story of the Three Caskets, emphasizing in particular the elements of "bond" and "choice." According to the critic, the characters are bound to each other and to different courses of action in many ways.

  • Aspects of Love

    In the first excerpt, Lawrence Hyman maintains that the primary action of The Merchant of Venice centers on the struggle between Portia and Antonio for Bassanio's affection, or the competition between friendship and marriage. Viewed in this manner, the critic continues, Antonio's bond with Shylock represents the merchant's attempt to retain Bassanio's love. Helen Pettigrew, in the second excerpt, argues that Shakespeare portrays Bassanio as an ideal Elizabethan lover, a character whose "apparent faults were to the Elizabethans mere conventional commonplaces arising from the economic conditions of the age."

  • Key Scenes

    In this excerpt, John Dover Wilson examines three key scenes in The Merchant of Venice: the casket scene (Act III, scene ii), the trial scene (Act IV, scene i), and the Belmont scene (Act V, scene i).

  • Shylock

    In the first excerpt, Bernard Grebanier examines the five scenes in which Shylock appears in The Merchant of Venice in an attempt to determine the nature of his character. In essence, the critic finds Shylock's desire for vengeance against Antonio motivated by the merchant's lending money interest-free, lessening Shylock's customers, and hence, his profits. In the second excerpt, Warren Smith considers Shylock a villain based on his profession as a usurer rather than on his race.

  • Portia

    Anne Parten discusses Portia's character in relation to the ring scene (Act V, scene i). According to the critic, the ring episode "acts as a focus for the unresolved—and potentially explosive—issue of the heroine's power."

  • Antonio

    Lawrence Danson examines Antonio's character and discusses his melancholy. He notes that Shakespeare's audience probably would have attributed Antonio's sadness to his economic activities. The critic also compares the merchant's profession with Shylock's, observing that to Elizabethans, who were generally suspicious of mercantile fortunes, money-lender and merchant were "not entirely separate."

Dictionary Tip:

Lookup any word on eNotes with our dictionary. Highlight the word and press SHIFT + D for a definition, or SHIFT + T for a synonym.