deck_15253414 Flashcards
VALUE!
Peter Cash; Shakespeare’s 1st aim in the Merchant of Venice.
VALUE!
Peter Cash; Shakespeare’s 3rd aim in the Merchant of Venice.
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Peter Cash; Shakespeare’s 4th aim in the Merchant of Venice.
- The play aims to “illustrate that there are common human dilemmas which - being impossible to resolve - first excite laughter, but ultimately inspire pity for our lapsed condition”
Peter Cash; common human dilemmas.
“Shakespeare’s grand, equivocal comedy…is nevertheless a profoundly anti-Semitic work”
Harold Bloom; the play as a comedy, but still anti-Semitic.
“Shakespeare’s strategy…to create suspense through the employment of ‘imminence’. What is about to happen in Venice or Belmont is constantly interrupted by a shift to the other place.”
Peter Thomson; the juxtaposition of scenes from Belmont & Venice in Acts 1 to 3.
“a decrepit old man, bent with age & ugly with mental deformity, grinning with deadly malice, … , congealed in the expression of his countenance … brooding over one idea, that of his hatred, and fixed on one unalterable purpose, that of his revenge”
William Hazlitt; comments on the portrayal of Shylock onstage as grotesque, and Shylock’s obsession with his revenge.
“Although Shylock shares a language with his Christian adversaries, he inhabits it ‘in a wholly different sense’ “
Stephen Greenblatt; Shylock’s use of language (idiosyncratic speaking style, repetition, etc.)
“The relationship between Shylock & Antonio is the dramatic core…the love story (between Portia & Bassanio) is of secondary dramatic importance”
Michael L. Fleischer; the idea that Portia & Bassanio’s relationship plot is less important to the story than Shylock’s revenge plot (can be used whenever you feel that Portia & Bassanio’s relationship developments are unrealistic).
“In the stories of Portia & Jessica, Shakespeare highlights the various conditions under which women were viewed as property in Elizabethan England.”
Farah Karim-Cooper; the treatment of Portia & Jessica as male property in the play (whenever Shylock talks about Jessica as being his, or Portia talks about her father or being Bassanio’s).
“Portia…represents Shakespeare’s first effort to create a comic heroine capable of controlling & directing the action…around her”
Anne Parten; Portia as capable & a character of action (any time she does anything in Act 4 / 5, & in Bassanio’s choosing scene).
“In constantly demonstrating her ability to beat men at their own games, Shakespeare allows Portia to emerge as a more potent character than any of her masculine companions.”
Anne Parten; Portia as a stronger character than the men in the play.
“Antonio has a no less savage detestation of Shylock…Antonio abhors Shylock because he catches his own reflection in his face.”
Harold C. Goddard; on Antonio’s feelings toward Shylock.
“Shylock is an alien in a society whose religion, pleasures, aims & attitudes are radically different from his own. Restrained & frugal by nature, he holds the pleasure-loving life of the Christians in contempt. Even his economical, unadorned style of speech sets him apart from the Venetians.”
Anne Barton; Shylock as alien, different & opposed to the pleasure-seeking society of Venice due to his frugal nature.
“Shylock is perfectly willing to use the Jewish faith as a cloak for villainy.”
Warren D. Smith; Shylock not being a true Jew, but rather using his religion to justify his vengeance; showing no personal engagement with the faith.
