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Thread: The Merchant of Venice

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    The Merchant of Venice

    We are doing this in English Lit. class, and while some people have said Shakespeare was racist cos of the way he portrayed Shylock, our teacher says he was the opposite. This is why Shylock makes his famous speech in act 3 -

    He 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; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you $#@! 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. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

    But our teacher also told us to do an interesting experiment - change every use of the word Jew to Muslim, look at how it reads, and think about what that tells us in today's world. He said that we need to know that the Jews were treated terribly in Elizabethan England, and that Shylock's attitude was the result of years of being treated as a second class human being and abused - Shakespeare was clever enough to present us with that situation in a way that we can come to our own conclusions. He also said that we need to understand the long term consequences of actions by society - which is why we should change the word Jews to Muslims, and think about how modern day events came about.

    Wasn't Shakespeare clever!
    Oh, I wish I were a glow worm,
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    Shylock was my favorite character in The Merchant of Venice and I think it's pretty clear that Shakespeare was sympathetic to him in a way. In my opinion, Shakespeare had a tendency to subtly include subversive thoughts into his plays that may have been lost on most of his contemporary audience but perhaps was meant as a wink to future generations.
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    Agree, Shakespeare was sympathetic to Shylock. He was trying to expose anti-semitism.

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    I think we tend to see what we want to see but I don't think it's necessarily a choice between disliking Jews or of being sympathetic to them. Personally, I don't see any contradiction in presenting Shylock as a complex personality with legitimate complaints about European society while condemning his greed and vindictive nature at the same time.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mister D View Post
    I think we tend to see what we want to see but I don't think it's necessarily a choice between disliking Jews or of being sympathetic to them. Personally, I don't see any contradiction in presenting Shylock as a complex personality with legitimate complaints about European society while condemning his greed and vindictive nature at the same time.
    It was fairly common back them to condemn usury.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    It was fairly common back them to condemn usury.
    And to associate usury with Jews. Different eras see Shylock in different ways. I think that says more about us than it does Shakespeare's intentions. In the end, all we can say for sure is that he was a good writer.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mister D View Post
    And to associate usury with Jews. Different eras see Shylock in different ways. I think that says more about us than it does Shakespeare's intentions. In the end, all we can say for sure is that he was a good writer.
    Whoever it was, Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, others are credited.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    Whoever it was, Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, others are credited.
    Oh? I didn't know that. Well, whoever it was. lol
    Whoever criticizes capitalism, while approving immigration, whose working class is its first victim, had better shut up. Whoever criticizes immigration, while remaining silent about capitalism, should do the same.


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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    Whoever it was, Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, others are credited.
    Lol, so was Queen Elizabeth I, Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, and William Stanley, the Earl of Derby - I saw a panel show where several experts said all that was a nonsense.

    http://shakespeareauthorship.com/howdowe.html
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    Quote Originally Posted by William View Post
    Lol, so was Queen Elizabeth I, Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, and William Stanley, the Earl of Derby - I saw a panel show where several experts said all that was a nonsense.

    http://shakespeareauthorship.com/howdowe.html

    It's just we know so little of Shakespeare for as great a writer he was.

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