The Merchant of Venice is probably the most controversial of all Shakespeare's plays. It is also one of the least understood. Is it a comedy or a tragedy? What is the meaning behind the test of the caskets? Who is the real villain of the trial scene? Is Shylock simply vicious and venomous, or is he more sinned against than sinning? Can the play be described as anti-semitic? What exactly is the quality of mercy? Is Portia one of the great Christian heroines of western literature? And what of the comedy of the rings with which Shakespeare ends the play? These questions and many others are answered in this critical edition of one of the Bard's liveliest plays.
The Merchant of Venice (Ignatius Critical Editions)
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4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good text. Angry critics.,
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This review is from: The Merchant of Venice (Ignatius Critical Editions) (Paperback)
Joseph Pearce -- the editor of the Ignatius Critical Editions -- remains one of my favorite biographers and so it was with great interest that I approached this edition. Unfortunately, I believe that Mr. Pearce is out of his element here. I'm no Shakespeare expert and couldn't do better, but I'm sure there are many who could.
The problem with this edition is that it is self-contradictory. It opens with Chesterton's fabulous view: that true democracy considers tradition. Then, turning to the critical essays, one finds not a single traditional view of MoV. Rather, the critical essays are enclosed in a section called "Contemporary Criticism." It seems that to get traditional views, one must turn to Norton or some other edition. What passes as "tradition" is rather a collection of Catholic (which is fine) and distempered (which is unfortunate) rants against modern culture. The edition has confused "old" with "tradition" and comes off curmudgeonly. For example, in his look at MoV on film, James Bemis writes, "Sure enough, this [2004] production reveals all the wrongheadedness of the modern artistic mind and shows that Hollywood can take a piece of at that is beautiful and delicate and oafishly turn it into something dark, ugly, and vile." Bah humbug! Likewise, Anthony Esolen reminds us that modern readers are generally ignorant: "We no longer know 'innocent merriment'. All is lust, and lust is good. A glance at our mass entertainment will show that we have combined the vices of the precise, scheming, bet-hedging prig with the dissipation of the debauched." You kids, get off my lawn! Why so angry? I'm also a little nervous about the academic thoroughness of Mr. Pearce. For example, in his introduction, three of the first four references are to Mr. Pearce's other writings. Harmless self promotion, I guess. The text itself is fine. There aren't many critical notes -- only footnotes suggesting biblical references or defining words. Many of these notes seem unnecessary in a critical edition (for example, "sad=melancholy," "venture=commercial speculation," "that=who"). The quantity of footnotes looks impressive, but unless you have a ten-year-old reading this, they're mostly useless. This edition is not completely unusable, but the dogmatic and culture-rebuffing spirit of it makes it seem dogmatic and hostile to a general audience. As such, there are a number of other critical editions that spend more time letting the play speak for itself and offer truly traditional views on the play and playwright. It strikes me that this edition has a particular interest in proving Shakespeare as a Catholic and then disinviting non-Catholics (or those who don't care about such concerns). Disappointing. ps. Very small point. Why is the spelling American, but punctuation handled in a British style (marks outside quotations)?
1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I am starting to love Shakespeare,
This review is from: The Merchant of Venice (Ignatius Critical Editions) (Paperback)
I remember reading Shakespearean plays in high school and college and I hated them. I could not see what was the big fuss was about him. Sure, he had many quotable quotes, but as a story teller he seemed to me to be at best mediocre. But thanks to the Ignatius Critical Editions, I realized that the problem was never with Shakespeare at all! Rather, the problem was with the modern interpretations of Shakespeare - of reading the 21st century into his plays.
Case in point is the play The Merchant of Venice. The modern commentators view Shylock as the tragic hero in the play. This simply did not fit. Shylock was a money lender who lent money to Antonio and wanted to cut out a pound of flesh from his chest for him not being able to pay. Modern loan sharks would blush at this - they would be content with merely breaking the person's knee caps. Not only that, but Shylock wanted his own daughter to be dead for stealing his money in order to run off with a man. And yet modern commentators treat Shylock as the hero of the play! Why? Because Shylock was Jewish, and it is just politically incorrect in our age to view a Jew as being the villain. But people in Elizabethan England would not have been so concerned of this political correctness. Sure, Shylock gave that famous speech about Jewish persecution, but he said this in the context of his justification for wanting to kill Antonio. Shylock was bad because he was a Jew. He was bad because he was so materialistic. He was so obsessed with money that he wished his daughter dead and another man killed. Besides, the play is called The Merchant of Venice. It is not called The Money Lender of Venice. The Merchant of Venice is Antonio. He is the hero of the play. He was willing to sacrifice his wealth and even life for his friend - being a Christ-like figure. This is the message that Shakespeare wanted to give. But modern commentators see it as the exact opposite. They would point to his forced conversion to Christianity as proof that he was a tragic hero. But a tragic hero would have refused a forced conversion. A real hero would have remained Jewish, even if it meant that he would lose all the money he had. But, instead, he was willing to even give up his Jewish faith as long as he could still hold onto his money. Another thing missed because we ignore the evidence (and there is plentiful!) that Shakespeare was a devout Catholic Christian is the contest with the caskets. The beautiful Portia was to be won over by the suiter choosing the right casket - the gold casket, the silver casket, or the lead casket. Many modern commentators see this story as superfluous, but it actually is critical. The suiter who chose the gold casket desired Portia because everyone desired her. The suiter who chose the silver casket desired Portia because he deserved her. But the one who chose the lead casket realized that it was not about what he received from her but what he gave - even if it brought hazard to himself. As Christ said, we must deny ourselves and pick up our crosses to be his worthy disciples. I am afraid that the previous critic has a total misunderstanding of Chesterton's view of tradition. What is traditional is not a Norton commentary just because it has been around a decade or two before the Ignatius series. Chesterton was not interested in maintaining the status quo. Instead, "traditional" is meaning going back as far as one can to the time of Shakespeare, and not reading Shakespeare through the eyes of our culture. Pearce and company are restoring the way this play was viewed in the first three centuries of its creation. Since they were closer to the time of its writing, they are more likely to get the play right than we would, who are viewing it five centuries later. Our culture is so far removed from that culture that is easy to view Shakespeare as a 21st century radical, secularist, feminist, or a gay activist. This is reading our ideas into Shakespeare, instead of viewing him from within his culture. And then this critic gave two examples of "rantings" in the book. As I read this book, I kept a mental note of any "rantings". I could only find three times that the commentators tried to apply the lessons of the play to our current culture. Most of the time the commentators were seeking to understand the play in Shakespeare's culture, not in ours. I deeply appreciate these series by Pearce. They are greatly increasing my enjoyment of these classical authors.
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