The Merchant of Venice

1
The Merchant of Venice

• Day One Slide Show
• ENGL 305
• Dr. Fike

2
Business

• Please underline your thesis statement (if you
  have one) and pass your paper proposal forward.
• Note If you have not used Courier New 12-point,
  you must reprint your assignment asap.

3
Analysis Paper

• Stage two is a development of your
  proposal5-page (minimum) nonresearched analysis
  paper. Of course, some topics cannot be done
  without a little bit of research, but try to
  limit yourself  to reference works and primary
  sources (e.g., the OED, a dictionary of
  mythology, historical material, and other primary
  sources such as Freud or Jung). Leave the
  secondary research until later do not let
  critics take over your project. You may want to
  think of this stage as a New Critical paper
  (i.e., a paper written straight from the primary
  text and your head). The main goal of the
  assignment is to continue to engage with the text
  and to refine your thesis. Nonetheless, it may
  be appropriate at this stage to read a copy of
  The Correct Use of Borrowed Information and
  review the MLA format. As with the paper
  proposal, you must have a list of works cited at
  the end of your analysis paper. Note This is
  an ANALYSIS paper therefore, you will need
  something to analyze (not summarize or narrate).
  In this respect, a single passage can often serve
  as your focused topic. If you do not have such a
  passage, be sure that you have some kind of
  aggregate of quotations so that you can analyze
  as a focused topic. Also keep in mind the
  difference between explication and analysis.
  Explication offers a detailed explanation of what
  something says. It is the foundation for
  analysis, which involves using what something
  says to support a controversial thesis statement.

4
Nosich 68

• This is the page in your critical thinking manual
  that asks ten questions, one per element. A way
  to begin your analysis paper would be to put your
  topic through the elements, using these questions.

5
Review

• Bottoms name and the word dream in the title
  may refer to various things.
• Especially if the queen was present for a
  performance of MSND, the play honored her status
  as the virgin queen, but it may also have gently
  reminded her that she had not produced an heir.
  (Re. power OberonTitaniaShakespeareElizabeth.
  )
• In any case, the play apparently served the same
  function for its original audience as Pyramus and
  Thisbe serves for the court characters.
• Consider this homology PTcharacterscharacter
  saudience audience_________?
• Complementarity Theseus is positive and
  negative, and what we know about his son
  Hippolytus undermines Oberons blessing.
• Imagination Lover gt lunatic. But lunatic and
  lover are to intrapsychic as poet is to
  extrapsychic. Only the poet performs a useful
  social function. Theseuss negative speech is
  actually Shakespeares positive praise of the
  poets role (i.e., an apology for poetry).
• PT is a tragic version of what happens to the
  lovers in the woods. It reminds us that comedy
  has tragic potential. Tragedy is failed comedy.

6
Outline

• Day One
• Discussion of Antonio.
• Discussion of Shylock.
• Day Two
• Mini-lecture on usury. See Usury Handout.
• Group One Discussion of 1.3.69-100 and Genesis
  3025 to 3116. Bring your own Bible. What is
  the relationship between the two texts? How does
  Genesis help you read this passage from MV?
• Group Two Discussion of the casket scenes. Why
  does Portias father establish the casket test?
  Why dont Morocco and Aragon choose correctly?
  What about Bassanio? The casket scenes appear in
  2.7, 2.9, and 3.2.
• Whole Class Discussion of a key motif
  venturing. Who ventures in MV?
• Day Three
• Shylocks attitude toward the bond.
• Group Activity Portias speech at 4.1.182ff.
  The quality of mercy. Get the MV Exercise
  on our course calendar (the link is called
  Portias Mercy Speech).
• The endingAct 5.

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Other Resources

• http//faculty.winthrop.edu/fikem/Courses/ENGL203
  05/30520MV20Page.htm

8
Mixture

• Why I like The Merchant of Venice Christian and
  classical elements.
• Isaac, Jacob, Esau dish of doves mercy Old
  Test. to New etc.
• Jason and other classical lovers, Endymion and
  Diana, Hercules and Hesione.
• Disappointment in The Merchant of Venice
  http//faculty.winthrop.edu/fikem/Courses/ENGL203
  05/30520MV20Paper.htm.
• Bedford 149 There were two overriding
  characteristics of Shakespeares practice as an
  adapter first, his eclecticism, his genius for
  combining classical stories with other materials,
  both ancient and modern, to form new creations
  and second, his ability to expand and multiply
  characters, episodes, and effects in order to
  surpass the classical models.

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Which Mode?

• Hard to figure out what kind of comedy it is
• Not a festive comedy like MSND or Twelfth
  Night.
• Not a full-blown problem comedy like Troilus
  and Cressida, Alls Well That Ends Well, or
  Measure for Measure.
• Not a perfect match for our MSND chart. Not a
  totally happy ending. No restorative return to
  Venice (next slide). Hard to figure out how to
  view Shylock. Do you know why (see two slides
  below)? Shylock is our central problem on days
  two and three.

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Mixed Modes, Bedford 97

• The Merchant of Venice is probably the most
  illustrative example of the high cost of comic
  resolution. The lovers gathering at Belmont in
  act 5, musical and joyous though it may be, is
  overshadowed by their intolerable treatment of
  Shylock in the trial scene (4.1). The movement
  toward assimilation that normally unites the cast
  in the last moments is not strong enough to
  include Shylock, who is stripped of his wealth,
  his daughter, and his religion and who leaves the
  stage for the last time in act 4. Although the
  merchant Antonio is present for the festivities
  in the last act, he has no partner and must go
  home alone.

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Problem?

• Can we understand the play as the original
  audience did?

12
Harold Bloom, Shakespeare The Invention of the
Human 189

• The Holocaust made and makes The Merchant of
  Venice unplayable, at least in what appear to be
  its own terms.

13
Question

• So how DID Elizabethans view Jews?
• See next slide.

14
Jo McMurtry, Understanding Shakespeares England
A Companion for the American Reader 146-47

• In theory, at least, the Elizabethans did not
  know any Jews, for Jews had been banned from
  England since the late thirteenth century.  There
  was, nevertheless, a small Jewish community in
  London, temporary residents in that the
  authorities could throw them out at any time. 
  They were not part of the general environment,
  and the typical Englishman had neither a personal
  acquaintance with individual Jews nor any
  detailed knowledge of Jewish culture.  Headline
  cases, so to speak, such as the trial and
  execution of Roderigo Lopez, a physician to Queen
  Elizabeth who was accused of plotting to poison
  her, simply confirmed the stereotype.
• The stereotype was lurid indeed.  Jews, to begin
  with, were already barred from spiritual
  salvation by their ancestors' having preferred
  Barabbas to Christ when Pilate offered to free
  one or the other (Matthew 2721) there was thus
  no hope for them and they could be considered in
  a sense nonhuman.  In the popular imagination,
  Jews spent most of their time kidnapping
  Christian children for sacrifice in secret
  rites.  During leisure moments, they arranged
  loans at high interest and extorted payments from
  helpless victims.  Each possessed piles of
  ill-gotten wealth which it behooved honest
  Christians to take away from them.  And each
  usually possessed, as well, a beautiful daughter
  who wanted nothing more than to be rescued from
  her cultural fate by some handsome Christian.

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Chaucer, The Prioresss Tale

• Jews slit the throat of a Christian boy and cast
  him into a privy drain (outhouse).

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Discussion Questions about Antonio

• In what sense is Antonio the central character?
• Why is he sad at the opening of the play?
• What kind of Christian is he?
• What kind of businessman is he?
• Discuss one of these questions in a small group.
  Go on to another question if you have time. 7
  minutes.

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First Question

• In what sense is Antonio the central character?

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In what sense is Antonio the central character?

• Salerio and Solanio
• Shylock ANTONIO Duke
• Jessica Lancelot
• Old Gobbo
• Bassanio
• Lorenzo Gratiano Portia Nerissa

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Why is Antonio sad at the opening of the play?

• What are the possibilities?

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Possible Reasons for Antonios Sadness

• Loss of ships
• Love
• Bassanio (2.8.50)
• Homosexuality?
• Guilt for treating Shylock badly?
• Depression? Bipolar disorder?
• Birenbaums answers (next slides)

21
A Critical Perspective

• Antonio might be saying If only I did not
  have to be in a play with this Shylock. His
  sadness is an emotional bridge from the romance
  world Belmont cf. Fryes second world to the
  environment of pain (78).
• Source Harvey Birenbaum, A View from the
  Rialto Two Psychologies in The Merchant of
  Venice. San José Studies 9 (1983) 68-82.
• How do you evaluate this statement?

22
Birenbaum 79

• It is no wonder that Antonio is melancholy! It
  is he, the titular hero, who is central to the
  testing-out process. It is he who would live in
  both worlds, the Christian merchant, and who is
  therefore caught most poignantly between them.
  His Venetian ducats secure the golden treasure of
  Belmont through the humility of his
  open-handedness. He does not register the
  implications of his ordeal consciously and
  explicitly, and he does not undergo any real
  change of character as a result of it (my
  emphasis).
• What does this quotation suggest about Antonios
  sadness? Do you agree with Birenbaum?

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My Answer

• See 2.6.13-14
• GRATIANO All things that are
• Are with more spirit chasèd than enjoyed.
• What does this suggest about the human reaction
  to life? About Antonio?

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Point

• Antonio may be sad because material acquisition
  is disappointing.
• Achievement of any goal brings less satisfaction
  than one hopes and expects.
• Acquisition leads to disappointment, and
  disappointment leads to sadness.

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What kind of Christian is Antonio? What kind of
businessman is he?

• Are there positives? See 1.3.41.
• Are there negatives? See 1.3.110.

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Discussion Questions about Shylock

• What is Shylocks attitude toward the bond?
• 1.3.38ff.
• 1.3.159ff.
• What causes his attitude to change? Does it
  really change?
• What is his motivation? Friendship? Revenge?
  Both? Neither? Something else?
• END