The Oxford Companion to English Literature | 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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