The Merchant of Venice

Bassanio borrows from Antonio who borrows from Shylock, a Jewish moneylender, so that Bassanio can go after a rich girl.  But then Antonio can't repay his loan, so this almost becomes a tragedy.  But the rich girl, Portia, just happens to also be smart, so she cross-dresses and pretends to be a lawyer to plead for mercy for Antonio, and all is well.

This play clearly revolves around money, but beyond that, it is the single play of Shakespeare's to openly deal with anti-semitism.  In recent years Shylock has been seen as more and more of a sympathetic character despite his clearly being a villain; this view of him emphasises the touching "prick us, do we not bleed?" speech.  Personally, I think he's a little of both.  Another note : this was the only Shakespeare play that Hitler banned, because he said it wasn't anti-semetic enough.  Food for thought.  Another notable aspect of this play is the whole pound-of-flesh thing, which has somewhat made its way into general western culture since this was written-the reference, not so much the idea.  According to an essay by Allan Bloom, Shylock and Antonio come from such different worlds that they cannot live together in peace.  It's not that Shylock is a hardened materialist; life is just a very material thing to him.  When his daughter leaves Judaism and him, she has rejected all he stands for and no longer deserves his concern.  To Antonio, on the other hand, life is a very spiritual thing.  He is willing and even eager to martyr himself for his friend. This argument makes lots of sense to me.

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