CRITICISM

Beiner, G. “The Merchant of Venice.” In Shakespeare's Agonistic Comedy: Poetics, Analysis, Criticism, pp. 168-202. Cranbury, N.J.: Associated University Presses, 1993.

Evaluates The Merchant of Venice as an agonistic (or “punitive”) comedy, with critical attention principally focused on the bond between Shylock and Antonio, Antonio's apparent defeat, the reversal of fortunes, and Shylock's punishment.

Berkowitz, Joel. “‘A True Jewish Jew’: Three Yiddish Shylocks.” Theatre Survey 37, no. 1 (May 1996): 75-98.

Documents performances and interpretations of Shylock by Yiddish-speaking actors and directors in American theater during the first half of the twentieth century.

Boehrer, Bruce. “Shylock and the Rise of the Household Pet: Thinking Social Exclusion in The Merchant of Venice.” Shakespeare Quarterly 50, no. 2 (summer 1999): 152-70.

Traces parallels between Jessica's status in the society of The Merchant of Venice and that of pets (specifically dogs) in Elizabethan England.

Booth, Roy. “Shylock's Sober House.” Review of English Studies 50, no. 197 (February 1999): 22-31.

Observes the symbolic function of Shylock's (i.e. a Jew's) house in The Merchant of Venice with a view to early modern English texts on the subject.

Chaudhuri, Sukanta. “Shakespeare and the Ethnic Question.” In Shakespeare and Cultural Traditions, edited by Tetsuo Kishi, Roger Pringle, and Stanley Wells, pp. 174-87. Cranbury, N.J.: Associated University Presses, 1994.

Examines the anti-Semitic discourse of The Merchant of Venice.

Fischer-Lichte, Erika. “Theatre as Festive Play: Max Reinhardt's Production of The Merchant of Venice.” In Venetian Views, Venetian Blinds: English Fantasies of Venice, edited by Manfred Pfister and Barbara Schaff, pp. 169-80. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1999.

Discusses Reinhardt's radical 1905 production of The Merchant of Venice at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, in which he centered the setting of the play, rather than the characters, as the focus of the drama.

Gaudet, Paul. “‘A Little Night Music’: Intertextuality and Status in the Nocturnal Exchange of Jessica and Lorenzo.” Essays in Theatre 13, no. 1 (November 1994): 3-14.

Probes allusions to classical romantic tragedies (stories such as those of Troilus and Cressida, Aeneas and Dido, and Jason and Medea) in the ostensibly comic interlude between Jessica and Lorenzo at the beginning of the final scene of The Merchant of Venice.

Geary, Keith. “The Nature of Portia's Victory: Turning to Men in The Merchant of Venice.” Shakespeare Survey 37 (1984): 55-68.

Investigates Portia's role in The Merchant of Venice—particularly while she is disguised as a man in the latter portions of the drama—in the context of the play's theme of love versus friendship.

Gross, John. Shylock: A Legend and Its Legacy. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992, 386 p.

In-depth study of the origins of Shakespeare's Shylock and interpretations of the character on British and American stages from the early seventeenth century to the end of the twentieth.

Hassel, R. Chris, Jr. “‘I Stand for Sacrifice’: Frustrated Communion in The Merchant of Venice.” In Faith and Folly in Shakespeare's Romantic Comedies, pp. 176-207. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980.

Investigates elusive and ironic references to the religious holiday of Shrovetide and doctrinal controversies related to Christian Communion in The Merchant of Venice.

Holmer, Joan Ozark. The Merchant of Venice: Choice, Hazard and Consequence. London: Macmillan, 1995, 369 p.

Book-length examination of The Merchant of Venice that examines the play’s aesthetic, religious, and economic contexts, and includes an extensive textual analysis.

Japtok, Martin and Winfried Schleiner. “Genetics and ‘Race’ in The Merchant of Venice.” Literature and Medicine 18, no. 2 (fall 1999): 155-72.

Appraises the ethnic categories of Jew and Moor in The Merchant of Venice, while acknowledging the anachronism of applying such terms as race and genetics to a Shakespearean text.

Jensen, Hal. Review of The Merchant of Venice. Times Literary Supplement, no. 5022 (2 July 1999): 20.

Reviews the 1999 Royal National Theatre production of The Merchant of Venice, observing that director Trevor Nunn's bleak interpretation illuminated the nuances of Shakespeare's characters, but obliterated the light-hearted qualities of the play.

Katz, David S. “Shylock's Gender: Jewish Male Menstruation in Early Modern England.” Review of English Studies 50, no. 200 (November 1999): 440-62.

Concentrates on Shylock's character in light of the medieval and early modern myth that Jewish men menstruated.

Patterson, Steve. “The Bankruptcy of Homoerotic Amity in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.” Shakespeare Quarterly 50, no. 1 (spring 1999): 9-32.

Reads Antonio as “a prototype of the lovesick homosexual.”

Simon, John. Review of The Merchant of Venice. New York 33, no. 6 (14 February 2000): 141.

Comments on director Trevor Nunn's “problematic” updates to The Merchant of Venice for his National Theatre production.

Sokol, B. J. “Constitutive Signifiers or Fetishes in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice?” International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 76, no. 2 (1995): 373-87.

Psychoanalytic discussion of The Merchant of Venice that explains character anxieties in terms of post-Freudian object obsession.

Spinosa, Charles. “The Transformation of Intentionality: Debt and Contract in The Merchant of Venice.” English Literary Renaissance 24, no. 2 (spring 1994): 370-409.

Legalist-literary analysis of the trial scene in The Merchant of Venice that takes into account social developments related to English law courts at the beginning of the seventeenth-century.