The Merchant of Venice
Merchant of Venice, The,a comedy by Shakespeare written between 1596 and 1598 . It was printed in 1600 , and this text was reprinted in the first folio ( 1623 ). Its chief source is the first story of the fourth day in Il pecorone, Giovanni Fiorentino's collection of novelle. Other sources include Munday 's Zelauto and the Gesta Romanorum . In performance Shylock , treated sometimes comically, sometimes tragically, has often been made into the central character. An adaptation by George Granville, The Jew of Venice, was the normal stage version from 1701 to 1741 .
Bassanio, a noble but poor Venetian, asks his friend Antonio, a rich merchant, for 3,000 ducats to enable him to prosecute fittingly his suit of the rich heiress Portia at Belmont. Antonio, whose money is all employed in foreign ventures, undertakes to borrow the sum from Shylock, a Jewish usurer, whom he has abused...
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