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The Merchant of Venice

by William Shakespeare

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Significance of "The Merchant of Venice" Title

Summary:

The title The Merchant of Venice is significant as it refers to Antonio, a Venetian merchant central to the play's events. Despite his passive role, the title emphasizes his pivotal part in the narrative, contrasting with the more dynamic characters of Shylock and Portia. The play blends comedy and tragedy, with Antonio's happy resolution juxtaposed against Shylock's tragic downfall, highlighting themes of finance, justice, and anti-Semitism. This complexity makes the title apt, reflecting the play's focus on commerce and human relationships in Venice.

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What does the title "The Merchant of Venice" signify?

The title of the play seems to refer specifically to Antonio, who is indeed the Venetian merchant of the story. This is odd, as Antonio is more of a secondary character, remaining offstage and silent through much of the story. Shylock, the Jewish moneylender, is far more central to the story. This raises the much-asked question of why Antonio is the title character and not Shylock or Portia, who also takes center stage in this play.

In fact, the play was first listed under a different title: "The Merchant of Venice, otherwise called the Jew of Venice." Perhaps the title was simplified when the play was later performed and published. It is possible that this was done to identify Antonio as the hero of the story. It has also been suggested that the title was clarified and shortened in order to avoid confusing it with Christopher Marlowe's play The Jew of Malta, which was published around the same time.

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What does the title "The Merchant of Venice" signify?

The title of the play has caused some comment in the past because Antonio does not dominate the action or claim most of the audience's attention. Shylock is really the central character in this regard until his exit at a relatively early stage, while Portia is the dominant character - or at least jointly so with Shylock - during the trial and from there to the end. Antonio is curiously muted and passive for an eponymous character and his opening words really characterise the way he is to behave for the rest of the play.

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What does the title "The Merchant of Venice" signify?

In one sense, Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice is certainly a comedy. Good largely triumphs over evil, and all of the main "good guys" end up with a happy ending: Bassanio and Portia live happily ever after, and Antonio finds out that his lost fortune is not so lost after all. That said, a persistent tragic streak runs through the play. For instance, the Jewish Shylock is forced to give up his fortune and convert to Christianity. While the moneylender certainly commits some acts of villainy in the play, he's also an oppressed Jew, and his Christian tormenters effectively succeed in beating him into submission. Shylock hardly gets a happy ending, and this fact has lead several readers to suggest that Shylock is something of a tragic figure.

Since Merchant employs this complex blend of comedy and tragedy, it's often known as one of Shakespeare's "problem plays." It might end with an ending typical of Shakespeare's comedies, but it deals with some pretty serious themes (such as anti-Semitism and racism) and leaves some plot threads (most notably Shylock's life after the trial) unresolved. As such, it's hard to classify Merchant, and its complex themes continue to beguile audiences and readers alike. 

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What is the significance of the title "The Merchant of Venice" in the play?

Firstly, the title is significant because it is a reference to the protagonist and hero of the play, Antonio. The title tells us who the play is about and also provides the setting. Since Antonio does live in Venice and is a merchant, and most of the events in the play revolve around him, we can confidently assume that the title refers to him. Furthermore, most of the action in the drama plays out in the city of Venice, so the title is also apt in this regard. 

The play opens in a street in Venice and Antonio is the first character to speak. He is sad and does not know why, but wishes to find the reason for his melancholy:

SCENE I. Venice. A street.

Enter ANTONIO, SALARINO, and SALANIO

ANTONIO

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad:
It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn;
And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.

We discover that he is a merchant when Salarino opines that Antonio's sadness is the result of his concern about his ships at sea which carry his precious cargo.

SALARINO

Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
There, where your argosies with portly sail,
Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood, ...

Antonio quickly assures him, however, that his depressed mood is not caused by concern for his goods:

ANTONIO

Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for it,
My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,
Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate
Upon the fortune of this present year:
Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad.

He assures Salarino that he had not placed all his fortune in only one vessel or that his ships were travelling to only one destination, nor that his entire fortune was dependent on the year's ventures alone, but that he, like a good businessman, had spread his risk. This, therefore, is not the reason for his sadness.

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Is the title The Merchant of Venice appropriate for the play?

The title of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice refers to Antonio, the protagonist in the play, who is a well-regarded Venetian merchant.

Interestingly, unlike the titles of Shakespeare's tragedies and histories, which are all named after the protagonist(s), of the fourteen comedies that Shakespeare wrote, only four titles—The Merchant of Venice, Taming of the Shrew, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and The Merry Wives of Windsor—refer directly to characters in the plays.

However, no one refers directly to Antonio as a merchant from Venice until well past the midpoint of the play:

GRATIANO: . . . What's the news from Venice?
How doth that royal merchant, good Antonio? (3.2.244–245)

We learn in the very first scene of the play that Antonio is a well-respected merchant, and that he has many ships at sea:

SALERIO: Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
There, where your argosies, with portly sail,—
Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood,
Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea,—
Do overpeer the petty traffickers,
That curt'sy to them, do them reverence,
As they fly by them with their woven wings. (1.1.8–14)

Since Antonio has all of his money invested in his ships and merchandise, he's unable to lend his friend, Bassanio, the money he needs to hold his place with other suitors and respectably woo Portia.

BASSANIO: . . . For the four winds blow in from every coast
Renowned suitors . . .
O, my Antonio! had I but the means
To hold a rival place with one of them,
I have a mind presages me such thrift,
That I should questionless be fortunate. (1.1.173–181)

Antonio agrees to let Bassanio borrow money in his name from Shylock, the money-lender and a hated adversary of Antonio, and the main plot of the play begins.

Present-day misperceptions about to whom the title of the play actually refers arise from the prominence of the Shylock character in the play. Shylock is a much more flamboyant and engaging character than Antonio, and, as in a number of Shakespeare's plays (and many other plays), the villains are much more interesting and memorable than the stalwart heroes.

In Shakespeare's time, the confusion about the title arose from two sources: a notation about the play in the Stationer's Register (where records of plays approved for publication were made), and the title of the first printed version of the play.

The entry in the Stationer's Register in 1598 reads: "a book of the Merchant of Venice, otherwise called the Jew of Venice." Although no existing published version of the play carries the title The Jew of Venice, the title The Merchant of Venice was thought to refer to Shylock, not to Antonio, even though Shylock is definitely not a merchant, but a money-lender, and not the protagonist in the play.

Adding to the confusion, Christopher Marlowe wrote a play in about 1589 entitled The Jew of Malta, in which the Jew of the title, Barabas, a villainous character (but considerably more villainous than Shylock), poisons his own daughter and nearly everyone else in sight, arranges for Turkish galley slaves and soldiers to be blown up by gunpowder, and devises a trap for the Turkish prince and his men to be boiled alive.

Given that a large number of playgoers in Shakespeare's time were anti-Semitic, even though many of them would never have met or even known a Jew in their entire lives, they would have cast Shylock and Barabas in much the same villainous mold and thought of the characters as interchangeable.

The first printed edition of the play in 1600 is titled The most excellent Historie of the Merchant of Venice. With the extreame crueltie of Shylocke the Jewe towards the sayd Merchant, in cutting a just pound of his flesh; and the obtaining of Portia by the choyce of three chests—which pretty much gives away the entire plot of the play.

Although the title clearly states that the play is about the "Merchant of Venice," the prominent and somewhat sensational reference to the "extreame cueltie of Shylocke the Jewe towards the sayd Merchant" might have led some to believe that the play was more about "Shylocke" than about the unnamed "Merchant."

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Explain how The Merchant of Venice is a tragicomedy.

Traditionally, a comedy is loosely referred to a narrative with a happy ending (that's why Dante's Divine Comedy, though it has plenty of unhappy moments in the Inferno portion, is called a comedy in the first place). Conversely, a tragedy has an unhappy ending, and usually involves the downfall of the main character.

Let's look at The Merchant of Venice in this context. In many ways, the play has a happy ending: Bassanio ends up with Portia, and Antonio not only escapes his gruesome fate, but also finds out that he is, in fact, still rich. By all accounts, that's a classic comedic ending: guy gets the girl, nobody is poor, and everyone's having a good time. However, the play subtly disrupts this comedic ending through its treatment of Shylock; though he is ostensibly the "villain" of the play, the reader/audience tends to sympathize with Shylock, as he faces significant persecution through the story, simply because he is Jewish. As such, his downfall is not positive at all, but instead takes on tragic proportions (he doesn't even appear on-stage during the final act). The play's comedic ending is subverted by the tragic downfall of Shylock, and this is one of the main reasons why The Merchant of Venice continues to be read and studied.  

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Explain how The Merchant of Venice is a tragicomedy.

Start with the meaning of the words. To be tragic is to be extremely sad (a bit different from a formal tragedy); to be a comedy in the Shakespearean sense, humor helps but what's necessary is for things to turn out well for the main characters, and, especially, for tensions to be successfully resolved and for lovers to get together.

Well, this is sad because of the frustration and harsh treatment of Shylock, but it is a comedy because Antonio does not lose the pound of flesh he agreed to, and because the lovers marry at the play's end.
Greg

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What is the significance of the title "The Merchant of Venice"?

Here is some insight for you:

There are two merchants in the play which immediately creates "confusion" or ambiguity.  There is Antonio, a merchant and friend of a man named Bassanio, and Shylock, a Jewish merchant. Either Antonio or Shylock might be the title character of the play, so from the start we don’t get a real sense of who the main character is. But what we do know is that ambiguity will be a central point of this play. Who does Shakespeare side with?  Does he take a side?  Who is his protagonist?

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What is The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare?

Though William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice is technically a comedy, as the play ends in marriage and light-hearted banter does take place, many scholars consider it a "problem comedy" or a "tragicomedy" because the play contains many difficult and dark topics and characters that seem better suited to a tragedy.

The problem with calling The Merchant of Venice a true comedy relates to the fact that a fair amount of controversy exists around the play despite the presence of comedic elements such as witty conversation and mistaken identities. The play contains darkly anti-Semitic attitudes as well as elements of tragedy, particularly in the downfall of the character of Shylock.

Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice can easily be called a literary classic, or even a masterpiece of English literature. Though Shakespeare wrote the play centuries ago, its themes of love (heterosexual and same-sex), hatred (racially and religiously motivated and otherwise), and family still resonate with today's audiences, which attests to the uniquely universal qualities that set Shakespeare's works apart from that of other playwrights.

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What is The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare?

The Merchant of Venice is a play by William Shakespeare, written sometime between 1596 and 1598. It is about a Venetian nobleman Bassanio who has fallen on financial difficulties, and his quest to gain the hand of Portia, a rich noblewoman, in order to save his financial situation. The play follows Bassanio's experiences as he tries to gain the money he needs through a loan from the moneylender Shylock and the many ordeals that occur during his quest to marry Portia. The play has mistaken identities and disguises, religious commentary, and commentary on money and social status.

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What is The Merchant of Venice about?

Shakespeare utilizes a myriad of themes within The Merchant of Venice. First among those themes is the antisemitism demonstrated when Shylock is judged by his ethnicity rather than his business practices. He is a successful businessman who is mistrusted merely because he is a Jew. Shakespeare demonstrates the prejudice and class structure present in English society in the 16th and early 17th century that still remains in many countries today. An additional theme that is prevalent is a question of honor as is shown with the lottery of chests. The suitors are tested for honor to find if they are pursuing the maiden for the dowry or her. That was a brave stand for Shakespeare in a culture where arranged marriages were the order of the day. Many of Shakespeare's plays deal with unhappy or ill-conceived marriages and this was no exception.

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