INTRODUCTION

The Merchant of Venice is a typical example of a Shakespearean

comedy in that its central conflict finds resolution before real harm
comes to anyone. As in many comedies, the conflict at the heart of
Merchant has the potential to end tragically. After Antonio forfeits his
deadly bond, Shylock demands the pound of flesh he’s been
promised, and he almost succeeds in claiming it after making his
argument in court. However, Shylock’s plan falls apart when Portia
shows up in court disguised as a young male “doctor of the law.”
(Incidentally, this instance of cross-dressing disguise constitutes
another common feature of Shakespeare’s comedies.) Not only does
Portia twist Shylock’s argument against him, but she also cites a law
declaring that Shylock, an “alien” Jew, must suffer punishment for
having undertaken to forfeit the life of a Venetian citizen. Despite an
initial suggestion that he should be hanged for his attempt to forfeit
Antonio’s life, Shylock ends up with a less serious sentence: he loses
half of his fortune and has to convert to Christianity. This resolution is
certainly devastating for Shylock, but nevertheless, the lack of
fatalities marks the play’s ending as an appropriately “comic.”

Another twist on the typical comedy has to do with Shakespeare’s

complex and ambiguous treatment of Shylock. Shylock is clearly the
play’s villain, as indicated by his unrelenting insistence on taking his
pound of flesh. And yet, despite the dehumanizing way other
characters treat him, Shakespeare portrays Shylock as a complex and
sympathetic figure. Shylock’s famous speech in Act III, when he asks,
“If you prick us, do we not bleed?,” offers a powerful rebuttal to the
anti-Semitism rampant in the world of the play. Modern audiences
often sympathize with Shylock, who ends up alone, destitute,
alienated from his daughter, and forced to abandon the faith of his
“tribe.” Some critics have even suggested that Shakespeare depicted
Shylock so sympathetically in order to make a plea for greater
tolerance of Jews in his own day. Critics who advocate this reading
point to Portia’s illegitimate courtroom performance as evidence that
the verdict against Shylock is unjust. Such a miscarriage of justice is
no small problem, particularly given the play’s emphasis on the
sanctity of Venetian law. On this reading, Shylock’s sad end makes
the play’s final act and the lovers’ quarrel at its center seem frivolous.
. Prose vs. Verse

The different uses of poetry and prose in The Merchant of Venice

generally follow a division between social classes. Often in
Shakespeare’s plays, uneducated members of the working class tend
to speak in prose, whereas educated members of the merchant class
and the nobility tend to speak in verse. Shakespeare rarely upholds
this division in any strict way, but the general tendency certainly
appears in Merchant. Take, for instance, the servant Launcelot. He
first appears in Act II, scene ii, where he delivers a long and rambling
prose monologue as he tries to decide whether or not to leave
Shylock’s service. The humor of Launcelot’s monologue is amplified
in the ensuing exchange he has with his blind father, Gobbo, also in
prose. In the short scene that follows, Launcelot addresses Shylock’s
educated daughter, Jessica. Whereas Launcelot makes his tearful exit
in prose, Jessica responds in refined verse: “I am sorry thou wilt leave
my father so. / Our house is Hell, and thou, a merry devil, / Didst rob
it of some taste of tediousness” (II.iii.1–3).
In addition to the split between the lower and upper classes, the
prose/poetry split also typically works along a divide between
mundane matters of business and more heightened matters of
emotion. For instance, the merchants typically use prose in their
financial dealings. This use of prose is on display at the beginning of
Act I, scene iii, where Bassanio approaches Shylock with his proposal
for a loan. However, the use of prose gets interrupted when Shylock
expresses his profound hatred of Antonio in an aside: After these
lines, the men continue to speak in verse, which signals that the loan
under discussion has become a matter more serious than just a
financial exchange. Indeed, the scene ends up with the infamous deal
entitling Shylock to a pound of Antonio’s flesh should he forfeit his
bond. Another example of the prose/poetry divide appears with regard
to matters of love. Here, too, emotional intensity dictates form. In Act
I, scene ii, Portia speaks in prose as she bemoans her miserable
fortunes in love. This scene takes place in private with Nerissa.
However, as soon as discourse on love becomes public, as when her
suitors—especially Bassiano—play the casket game, more formal
verse prevails.
The different uses of prose and poetry based on class and emotional
intensity set up an implicit hierarchy that privileges verse. But
Shakespeare also uses sudden shifts in register to invert that
hierarchy. One key example appears early in the play, when Bassiano
speaks for the first time. Gratiano has just given a long speech
attempting to alleviate Antonio’s depression. Though delivered in
verse and featuring numerous poetic turns of phrase, the speech is
somewhat rambling. When Gratiano leaves, Bassiano switches to
prose and says to Antonio:
The change in register underscores Bassiano’s humorous, ironic tone.
But this register shift also echoes an important thematic undercurrent
in the play, one that works against the characters’ investment in
monetary value and instead emphasizes the greater value of that
which is humble. The test Portia administers for her suitors represents
a similar example. The test presents suitors with a choice between
caskets made of gold, silver, and lead. Ultimately, it is the casket
made from the humblest material that contains her portrait and the
promise of marriage. Bassiano encapsulates this theme when he
chooses the lead casket: “So may the outward shows be least
themselves. / The world is still deceived with ornament” (III.ii.73–
74).

POINT OF VIEW In The Merchant of Venice Shakespeare uses

location and gender to frame point of view, creating a split between
male-dominated Venice and woman-controlled Belmont. Venice
represents a place where matters of business and law predominate.
Belmont, by contrast, represents a place where matters of love and
marriage take center stage. The play’s first three acts oscillate
between the two locations, alternating between the risky business
ventures in Venice and the marriage trials in Belmont. Act IV’s long
courtroom scene brings the Venetian plot to a crisis point. The
conflict between Shylock and Antonio comes to its head in this scene,
and resolution arrives with the judge ultimately deciding in Antonio’s
favor. The Belmont-framed plot has a more complicated structure. In
one sense, this plot resolves at the end of Act III, when Bassanio
chooses the lead casket and wins Portia’s hand. In another sense,
however, this plot develops a new complication in Act V, when
Bassanio breaks his promise never to relinquish Portia’s ring. The
eventual resolution of this secondary complication allows the play to
end with a qualified celebration of love in which women hold the
ultimate power.

In addition to location and gender, religion also plays an important

role in framing point of view. Merchant stages a conflict between
Christian and Jewish outlooks. Considering that Shylock and his
daughter Jessica represent the only Jewish characters, the play’s
religious conflict is out of balance. It seems inevitable, then, when the
Christian point of view wins out. Not only does Jessica steal away
from her father to marry Lorenzo, a Christian, but Shylock himself is
also ultimately ordered to convert to Christianity. Both Jewish
characters disappear from the play before the final act. This is
significant, because it means that the Jewish point of view effectively
vanishes from the play, ensuring Christianity its dominant position.
And yet, the events of Act V trouble the dominance of the Christian
point of view, and the paradigm of Christian marriage in particular.
Both Bassanio and Gratiano break their first vows to their new wives.
Although neither man engages in anything so damning as adultery,
their shared failure to be true to their wives’ demands undermines the
sanctity of these new marriages and the Christian paradigm such
marriages are meant to uphold
TONE

The overall tone of The Merchant of Venice is ambiguous, split

between despair and celebration, seriousness and playfulness.
Although many of Shakespeare’s comedies feature negative emotions
at some point, it is rare for a comedy to have as its defining moments
such powerful rhetoric as that which appears in Shylock’s “If you
prick us, do we not bleed?” speech. The emotional resonance of
Shylock’s speech makes it difficult to discern whether he’s a villain or
a victim. It is also rare to find negative and positive emotions woven
together as tightly as they are in Merchant. Take, for instance, the
play’s second scene, which begins with Portia despairing because her
late father used his will to dictate the terms of his daughter’s future
marriage. Portia feels trapped, not to mention overwhelmed by the
number of suitors hoping to win her hand. But her despairing tone
quickly transforms into a playful sassiness, as she and her attendant,
Nerissa, proceed to make fun of the suitors visiting her residence in
Belmont. She speaks with a quick-witted but cutting snarkiness, and
though hilarious, her harsh words also clearly mask her anxiety about
the possibility of bei The ambiguous tone of the play carries important
thematic weight, insofar as characters’ emotional lives remain closely
bound up with the sudden reversals of fortune that accompany risk-
laden financial dealings. Antonio makes this connection between
emotions and finance evident when he opens the play with an
expression of melancholy: “In sooth I know not why I am so sad”
(I.i.1). Salarino suggests that Antonio must just be anxious because
his thoughts are with the fleet of merchant vessels he recently
invested in. Although Antonio denies Salarino’s theory, it later
becomes clear that his friend was right. Antonio’s emotions therefore
rise and fall anxiously in parallel with the ships that ride the ocean’s
turbulent swells. Tellingly, Antonio’s melancholy clears once he and
Bassanio strike a deal with Shylock, allowing for renewed
anticipation. As he assures Bassanio at the end of Act I: “In this there
can be no dismay. / My ships come home a month before the day”
(I.iii.175–76). By Act III, though, Antonio once again finds himself in
dire straits. His ships have not returned, and Shylock demands his
fatal bond. ng forced to marry someone she doesn’t love

Due to the play’s ambiguous tone, which seems darker than befits a
comedy, scholars sometimes consider The Merchant of Venice among
Shakespeare’s so-called “problem plays.” These plays earned their
name for a couple of reasons. For one thing, they pose a problem
related to genre classification, since traditional features of both
tragedy and comedy coexist uneasily within a single play. Such an
uneasy coexistence of the tragic and the comic may leave the
audience with mixed feelings, rather than the clearer-cut feelings of
catharsis or resolution that typically accompany tragic and comic
endings, respectively. Problem plays are also so named because they
tend to address contemporary social problems. In the case of
Merchant, Shakespeare addresses the problem of usury—that is, the
practice of lending money at high rates of interest. Some scholars
have argued that Shakespeare also specifically addresses the problem
of anti-Semitism, though it remains unclear whether he intended to
demonize Shylock or defend him. Jews in Shakespeare’s time were
often stereotyped as usurers, and Shylock clearly participates in the
practice. If the play stigmatizes usury, does that mean that it also
stigmatizes Shylock and the Jews?
FORESHADOING

Shakespeare’s use of foreshadowing in The Merchant of Venice

frequently appears in wordplay, meaning that the playwright embeds
references to future events in words and phrases that only appear
portentous after the fact. This particular foreshadowing technique
tends to be rather subtle and hence difficult to notice in an initial
viewing or reading of the play. As such, the use of foreshadowing in
Merchant tends not to be as central to the plot as it is in many of
Shakespeare’s other plays. It does not, for example, create the sense
of a world ordered by something like fate, as is the case in a play like
Romeo and Juliet, where the “star-crossed lovers” are clearly destined
for tragic death. Instead, the world of Merchant gets its structure from
secular, human-created institutions such as finance and law. With less
emphasis on a sacred or divine order, the technique of foreshadowing
takes on a less obvious or symbolic role. Nevertheless, a couple of
key examples of foreshadowing do stick out, particularly with regard
to the fates of Ant

Antonio’s financial collapse

Shakespeare foreshadows Antonio’s grim future in the first scene,

when it becomes clear that he has made the excessively risky decision
to invest all of his money in a single fleet of merchant ships. Antonio
knows this was a poor decision, which explains why he feels the need
to lie to Salarino and Solanio: “My ventures are not in one bottom
trusted, / Nor to one place, nor is my whole estate / Upon the fortune
of this present year” (I.i.42–44). Later in the same scene, however,
Antonio openly admits to Bassanio that “all my fortunes are at sea,”
and he explains further: “Neither have I money nor commodity / To
raise a present sum” (I.i.177–79). Not only has Antonio irresponsibly
invested all of his fortunes, but he has also run out of collateral to
raise more funds. Furthermore, Antonio has also stretched his credit
“to the uttermost” (I.i.181), making it yet more difficult for him to
acquire the cash Bassanio needs to pursue marriage with Portia. The
fact that Antonio would persist with securing a new loan given his
already dire financial situation strongly suggests that he’s headed for
more trouble.

The terms of Shylock’s loan

In addition to foreshadowing Antonio’s financial collapse, the play’s
first scene also portends the gruesome terms of Shylock’s loan. When
Bassanio initially broaches the subject of money, Antonio
immediately pledges himself at his friend’s service and tells Bassanio:
“be assured [that] / My purse, my person, my extremest means / Lie
all unlocked to your occasions” (I.i.137–39). Although Antonio
simply expresses a general willingness to help, the offer of his “[his]
person, [his] extremest means” also takes on a grim second meaning
in the play’s third scene, when Shylock requires a pound of Antonio’s
flesh in the event that he fails to repay a loan. Shylock himself hints at
this peculiar loan term when he explains to Bassanio, “My meaning in
saying he is a good / man is to have you understand me that he is
sufficient” (I.iii.13–14). By “sufficient” Shylock means that Antonio
possesses enough wealth to guarantee a loan, but his wording turns
ominous when he repeats it shortly thereafter: “The man is,
notwithstanding, sufficient” (I.iii.23). Shylock subtly introduces the
possibility that Antonio’s physical person—the man himself—will
serve as collateral, and not his reputation.

Shylock’s forced conversion

Woven into the personal conflict between Antonio and Shylock is the
religious conflict between Christianity and Judaism. In the world of
the play, Christianity holds the primary position of power. From the
outset, then, Shylock the Jew already occupies a subordinate social
position, which suggests that things aren’t likely to work out for him.
Yet in spite of this imbalance, power shifts in Shylock’s favor when
Antonio comes to seek a loan from him. Shylock uses the opportunity
to explain why he charges interest on loans, a much-hated practice
stereotypically associated with Jewish moneylenders. Shylock cites
the story of Jacob from the book of Genesis as a biblical justification
for the practice. After citing scripture, however, Shylock explains that
he will not charge Antonio interest on his loan. Surprised by this
Christian-like act of kindness, Antonio refers to Shylock as a “gentle
Jew”—where gentle means “benevolent” but also puns on gentile,
which means “Christian.” After Shylock leaves, Antonio insists that,
given his display of mercy, “The Hebrew will turn Christian”
(I.iii.173). Antonio’s words prove unexpectedly prescient when
Shylock loses the court case in Act IV and is forced to convert to
Christianity.

Defining the genre

As already mentioned in the introduction, it is difficult to define the

genre of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. When the play was
first produced and published, it was classified as a comedy since its
“[…] main thematic and structural elements […] seem to belong to
the category of romantic comedy rather than elsewhere.” (Holderness
1998: 24).

In the 19th century, an emphasis was put on the fairy tale elements in
the play. Harley Granville-Barker is among those who
characterized The Merchant of Venice as a “fairy tale”. To his mind
“[…] the play ends, pleasantly and with formality, as a fairy tale
should.” (Granville-Barker 2007: 121). Critics in this field refer to the
multiple marriages at the end of the play.

However, The Merchant of Venice is perhaps more remembered for

its dramatic scenes, which lead to interpret the play as a tragedy. In
1839, the German poet Heinrich Heine classified Shakespeare’s play
as a tragedy: “I must include The Merchant of Venice among the
tragedies, although the frame of the work is a composition of laughing
masks and sunny faces […] as though the poet meant to write a
comedy.” (Heine 1839, qtd. in Wilders 1969: 29).

Even in the late 19th century, in a pre-Holocaust world, The

Merchant of Venice seemed to be read and played as a tragedy.
Theatre productions of that time often ended on a tragic note upon
Shylock’s departure at the end of the trial scene. Hence, many people
felt that the play succeeded better as a tragedy than a comedy.

In 1869, the critic Frederick Samuel Boas coined the term “problem
play” and classified Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice into this
category. After the events of World War II, many people could hardly
see any comedy in the humiliation, mockery and forced conversion of
the Jew Shylock. The Merchant of Venice was therefore perceived as
a problem play in the second half of the 20th century. (cf. Schülting
2000: 135).

Since the aim of this term paper is to classify the genre of

Shakespeare’s play, it is first of all necessary to shortly define and
present the criteria of a comedy, tragedy and problem play.

COMEDY
 the Comedy is an imitation of the common errors of our life, which
he [= the Comick] representeth in the most ridiculous and scornefull
sort that may be; so as it is impossible that any beholder can be
content to be such a one. (Sir Philip Sidney qtd. in Suerbaum 1980:
214)

The above-mentioned quotation from Sir Philipp Sidney shows that a

comedy is the mirror of our life. Traditionally, comedies deal with the
concerns and exploits of ordinary people. The aim of a comedy is to
leave a feeling of satisfaction at the end of the play when the reader or
spectator witnesses deserving people succeed. (Simpson 1998).

In his Speculum Maius, written in 1250, Vincent de Beauvais defines

comedy as follows: “Comedy is a kind of poem which transforms a
sad beginning into a happy ending” (Beauvais 1250 qtd. in Janik
2003: 120) This definition is according to Nevill Coghill the “true
basis of Shakespearean comedy.” (ibid). It is important to mention,
that in the Elizabethan time, the term “comedy” had a very different
meaning from modern comedy. Holderness assumes that the concept
of comedy in the 16th century was broader and more elastic than it is
today. (cf. Holderness 1998: 24). A Shakespearean comedy is
nowadays understood as a play in which the central character is in the
end saved from death or a catastrophe. Comedies do not necessarily
have to be funny or evoke laughter. Nevertheless, it has to be
considered that particular matters, such as social and moral questions,
might have been funny for the readers and spectators of that time. (cf.
McEvoy 2000: 125). Moreover, the conventions of comedy require a
happy ending. A Shakespearean comedy is one that has a happy
ending, usually involving marriages between the unmarried
characters.

In the introduction to the New Cambridge edition, M. M. Mahood

classifies Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice as a Renaissance
romantic comedy, a genre that had become highly popular in the two
decades before Shakespeare wrote the play. In general, romantic
comedies portray love and virtue triumphing over evil.” (Janik 2003:
121) as it is the case in The Merchant of Venice.

In his book “Shakespeares Dramen”, Ulrich Suerbaum divides

Shakespeare’s comedies into different groups. The first group
contains the early comedies such as The Comedy of Errors, The
Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Love’s
Labour Lost. To the group of mature comedies belong the plays A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like
It and Twelfth Night. Finally, there are romantic comedies
like Perciles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest. (cf.
Suerbaum 1980: 215ff).

What most of the above-mentioned comedies have in common are the

following four criteria:
First of all, comedies often contain a multiple plot structure. They are
divided into main- and subplots which are structurally and
thematically linked (cf. Muir 1979: 52). In terms of content, these
plots are intertwined and produce complexity.

Another typical element for all kinds of comedies is music. The

technique of music is used to create a harmonic atmosphere.
According to Muir, music underlines romantic actions and establishes
a fictional fairy-tale atmosphere: greenworld-like and full of harmony
and order (cf. ibid: 51).

One of the most common features in comedies is love and its glamour
of romance. The theme of love is particularly picked out in a romantic
comedy in which young and likeable characters, meant for each other,
are kept apart by some complicating circumstance. They often pass
trough a phase out of their parental control and into love and marriage
(cf. McEvoy 2000: 126). Thus, in comedies, young lovers often have
to challenge certain obstacles until they are finally wed. According to
Holderness, courtship romance is used to create a romantic
atmosphere and operates as predictably as fairy-tales (cf. Holderness
1998: 25).

The last characteristic, which is common to all kinds of comedies, is

the act of disguise. In Shakespeare’s comedies, particularly young
women disguise themselves as men and therefore create confusion.
The technique of cross-dressing is often used by women in order to
achieve a happy ending, usually a marriage, at the end of the play. (cf.
McEvoy 2000: 126).

To sum up, the Shakespearean term of comedy can be divided into

different subcategories such as mature or romantic comedies. All of
Shakespeare’s comedies have common features like multiple plot
structure, music, love and disguise. With the help of these four
criteria, the comic aspects in The Merchant of Venice will be analysed
in the third part of this term paper.

TRAGEDY
Many readers and theatregoers consider The Merchant of Venice as a
tragedy, especially with regard to the treatment of the Jew Shylock
during the whole play. The following section presents the criteria of a
tragedy. In his Poetics, Aristotle defines the term “tragedy” as
follows:

The imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having

magnitude, complete in itself; in language with pleasurable
accessories, each kind brought in separately in the parts of the work;
in a dramatic, not in a narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and
fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions.
(Aristotle qtd. in Cuddon 1976: 926)

In essence, a tragedy is the mirror image or negative of comedy. In

contrast to comedies, tragedies are more serious in subject. It is quite
usual for tragedies that the story begins with happiness and ends in
disaster. The aim of a tragedy is to evoke pity and fear on the part of
the audience. (cf. Simpson 1998).

According to Aristotle a tragedy depicts the downfall of a great

person through some fatal error or misjudgement . The great person is
usually the “tragic hero” who must be essentially admirable and good.
The change to bad fortune which the tragic hero undergoes is not due
to any moral defect or flaw, but a mistake of some kind. The hero’s
downfall is understood by Aristotle to arouse pity and fear that leads
to an epiphany and a catharsis both for the hero and the audience. In
his “Poetics”, Aristotle also claims that “[…] the structure of the best
tragedy should be not simple but complex and one that represents
incidents arousing fear and pity - for that is peculiar to this form of
art.” (Aristotle qtd. in Fyfe: 1932).