Essays on Merchant of Venice

The anti-Semitic sentiment set in motion by Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta and the near Satanic equation of Barabas had buttressed the plan of a play Shakespeare conceived in the commercial town of Venice with its life-loving gentry. The gentlemen of Venice who paraded themselves in gondolas in the romantic canals and waterways were instantly cut out for popular sympathy and affection, as the very opening seems to suggest. The dolour of Antonio and the volley of indulgent comments and cajoling coming in response proves it beyond doubt. To add to it are the fancies of the wastrel ...

INTRODUCTION

The paper evaluates the various contexts within which the audience can read the play by Shakespeare and watch the film produced in this modern day, about a decade ago. Given that the two vary in the period of production, it is inevitable to have differences in the intrinsic and extrinsic contexts of the literary works. Some applications in the play could not be included in the film because of the technicalities involved in the production of films. At the same time, there may be some modifications to enable the audience receive the content of literary work in a better ...

The aim of this essay is to present you with the analysis of Bassanio’s character in the Shakespearean play ‘The Merchant of Venice’. The ‘Merchant of Venice’ proves the magique talent of Shakespeare to depict the mystery and paradox which characterizes the mysterious complexity of the human soul. The aim of this essay is to prove the power and talent of Shakespeare to shed light in the mysterious maze of the paradoxes of the human soul through the reflections drawn upon the reading of ‘The Merchant of Venice’ and the specific character of Bassanio. The essay will prove ...

William Shakespeare is one of the most influential ancient writers. His books and plays have been used in the present time, in different scenarios including education and entertainment amongst several other considerations. However, it is notable that, in his famous The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare borrowed his storyline from several other plays including The Gesta Romanorum and Giovanni Fiorentino’s Il Pecorone. In these plays, several similarities are witnessed including characterization and thematic compositions as well as the storyline. In this paper, I will consider the excerpt from The Gesta Romanorum and compare the storylines, thematic compositions and ...

Voluptuous Mors

It is a matter of prominent curves running through a black veil that flows beneath them. A game between the lights and the angles. Seven models position themselves to form a skull as the artist stands on the side with an alarmed gaze. Salvador Dali, a Spanish painter, partners with photographer Philippe Halsman to create a surrealist human skull (1951). The image depicts Dali standing next to the models with an "enfreaked gaze” as Ann Millett would write. He is looking at the possible third spectator, implying that there is something in the image that should be looked at awareness, if not caution. This ...

Shakespeare is well-remembered for his exemplary work in the work of literature. Considered by many as the finest author during his time, he wrote books on different genres. However, it is how he managed to employ certain themes in all the genres he worked on that communicates his mastery of literature. He mostly worked on here genres of literature: History, comedy and tragedy. The two genres that this paper will work on are tragedy and comedy. The paper will focus n Merchant of Venice as the comedy and Macbeth as the tragedy. Using these two works, the paper will ...

In the merchant of Venice, Solanio is a friend to Antonio and is a merchant as well. Solanio is a minor character that plays an immense role in the merchant of Venice because he is a close friend to Antonio who is a major character in the play. First, we encounter him at the opening of the play where he has a conversation with his friend Salerio. The appearance at the beginning of the play imply that the audience has a lot to learn from Solanio about the play at large .For instance, during his conversation, the audience learns that Antonio is sad and Solanio suggests ...

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INTRODUCTION “He [that is, Antonio] hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million—laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies—what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes?” (Merchant of Venice, 3.1.42-46) The above lines were borrowed from the famous speech made by Shylock in William Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. This speech by Shylock was his attempt at demonstrating his humanity and to encourage the audience to sympathize with his condition as a person ...

The Merchant of Venice is a comedy written by William Shakespeare at around 1597. This play is considered as Shakespeare’s darkest comedies. The comedy is about a bitter and angry Jewish moneylender named Antonio, who seeks revenge against his defaulter, a Christian merchant. The young man Bassanio had borrowed money from the merchant to romance a rich woman he was in love with. In the time the play was written, there were few Jews in England, because they had been banished under the Edict of Expulsion in 1290. The Jews were treated badly in England, since they were a target of hatred. ...

Law and justice are two aspects of the same coin. While one cannot be without the other, "The Merchant of Venice" by Shakespeare is a play where a conflict between the two is observed and eventually resolved. In the paragraphs to follow, we will compare and contrast the sense of law and judgement as felt by the various protagonists of the play and understand how "Christian sense of justice weighed more than Venetian law in Merchant of Venice." We will be focussing majorly on the court scene, which is calibrated in Act IV of the play. - Shylock and his ...

Analysis of Leadership Styles and Behaviour

The two stories under consideration in this paper are curved out of the Play Merchant of Venice, written by prolific and world-beating playwright William Shakespeare first staged at about 1605 and since then, took the world by a storm; the other story is hived out of the Mad Men, an American television Period Drama Series created, directed and produced by award-winning and trend-blazing video writer and producer Matthew Weiner and was premiered on July 19, 2007 on the American Cable Network. It is also co- produced by Lionsgate Television. The Play Merchant of Venice features the love struck Antonio as ...

Introduction

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is widely acknowledged as the greatest English language playwright. He was born and raised to a middle-class glove-maker in Stratford-upon-Avon, England (Cohen, 6). He wrote masterpiece poems, plays, short stories and books about 400 years ago and his works have been timeless. Two of Shakespeare’s most celebrated works are the play titled Macbeth and the novel titled Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare’s upbringing in a middle class family and lack of adequate education predisposed him to a challenging life which motivated him to write as a way to express to future generations the turmoil and tragedies of the ancient ...

The Merchant of Venice is a comical play that was written by the legendary Shakespeare, with the setting of the play differing from one scene to another. In the play, Antonio, who is very rich complains to his friends of the melancholy that he cannot explain. Meanwhile, Antonio’s friend, Bassanio needs some cash in order to court Portia in style. Antonio agrees to bail Bassanio out, but then, he has no liquid cash as all his money is invested somewhere else. As such, he had to take a loan in order to help Bassanio. Portia, on the other hand, is ...

The Merchant of Venice would be notable if it simply coined the phrase “A Pound of Flesh;” however, there are other distinctions that set it apart even for an author as notable as Shakespeare. In act III scene one there is a speech that contains the quote, “If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that” (III.i.53–57). This play also contains ...

At the beginning of Shakespeare’s play, The Merchant of Venice, Antonio reveals to his friends that he is sad, but does not know the reason for his sadness. Solanio and Solarino, Antonio’s friends, look baffled as Antonio admits, “In sooth, I know not why I am so sadI am to learn; and such want-with sadness makes of me” . Solanio and Solarino can only think of three things which can make Antonio sad: money, love, or a strange temperament. However, Antonio dismisses all these propositions. Although Antonio dismisses love as the main source of his worries, a deep analysis of ...

When reading Homer’s Iliad, one of the most important parts of the plot has to do with waiting for Achilles to decide whether or not he will enter the fray on the side of the Achaians. Agamemnon had angered Achilles before the war had even begun, by taking Achilles’ mistress Briseis from him. Agamemnon had had to surrender his own mistress (Khriseis) in order to undo a curse from Apollo, and he had demanded Achilles’ in return. When the Achaians arrive near Troy, while the rest of the warriors headed for the city, Achilles waited in his tent; all ...

The individuals of the same sex vividly use the term homosocial to implore an assortment of situations and the relationships mutual. This although virtually is used to in the various instances to exclusively refer to the relationship between men which has the sexual inference in an angle that depicts the contrast of the term homoerotic. The contrast that is derived in the two terms helps vividly to explore the and explain the cloud of contrast that is being derived in the connotations that the various scholars try to link the two terms together. The term, which on the ...

Shakespeare’s Protests against Institutional Racism in Elizabethan England

Othello is not the only play in the Shakespearean canon that features racism, and it certainly is not the only play that challenges social mores. Whether it’s the feisty Beatrice, in Much Ado About Nothing, turning social convention on its head, in the sense that women were supposed to be prim and proper in Elizabethan England, when she wows Benedick with her powerful desire to save Hero, or whether it’s the Jew Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, endowed with many of the physical characteristics associated with the worst stereotypes associated with members of his religion but ...

Now in the early twenty-first century we tend to associate racist attitudes with out-moded and old-fashioned beliefs. The Merchant of Venice and Othello can, therefore, present challenges to modern readers and audiences because, to a certain extent, Shakespeare presents relations between the different ethnic groups in a negative way: both plays contain characters with extremely racist attitudes which modern audiences are likely to find objectionable and highly offensive. The burning issue for readers and audiences is how far Shakespeare endorses the racist attitudes of the societies he portrays. This essay will show that, although both plays contain characters with racist attitudes, ...