The Merchant of Venice [Paperback]

William Shakespeare (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2005

"The Merchant of Venice" is the story of Antonio, the drama's title character, and his friend Bassanio. Bassanio is in need of money so that he may woo Portia, a wealthy heiress. Bassanio asks Antonio for a loan and Antonio agrees to this loan, however all his money is tied up in shipping ventures. Together the two go to Shylock, a Jewish moneylender, to request a loan for Bassanio to be guaranteed against Antonio's shipping ventures. Shylock agrees to the loan at no interest in the condition that if the debt is not repaid Shylock may collect a pound of Antonio's flesh. At the same time Portia, who is being wooed by various suitors, is upset over a curious stipulation in her father's will regarding the man that she may marry.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit www.folger.edu.

Barbara A. Mowat is Director of Academic Programs at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Editor of Shakespeare Quarterly, Chair of the Folger Institute, and author of The Dramaturgy of Shakespeare's Romances and of essays on Shakespeare's plays and on the editing of the plays.

Paul Werstine is Professor of English at King's College and the Graduate School of the University of Western Ontario, Canada. He is the author of many papers and articles on the printing and editing of Shakespeare's plays and was Associate Editor of the annual Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England from 1980 to 1989. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Digireads.com (January 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1420926209
• ISBN-13: 978-1420926200
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #724,764 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564, and his birth is traditionally celebrated on April 23. The facts of his life, known from surviving documents, are sparse. He was one of eight children born to John Shakespeare, a merchant of some standing in his community. William probably went to the King's New School in Stratford, but he had no university education. In November 1582, at the age of eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior, who was pregnant with their first child, Susanna. She was born on May 26, 1583. Twins, a boy, Hamnet ( who would die at age eleven), and a girl, Judith, were born in 1585. By 1592 Shakespeare had gone to London working as an actor and already known as a playwright. A rival dramatist, Robert Greene, referred to him as "an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers." Shakespeare became a principal shareholder and playwright of the successful acting troupe, the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later under James I, called the King's Men). In 1599 the Lord Chamberlain's Men built and occupied the Globe Theater in Southwark near the Thames River. Here many of Shakespeare's plays were performed by the most famous actors of his time, including Richard Burbage, Will Kempe, and Robert Armin. In addition to his 37 plays, Shakespeare had a hand in others, including Sir Thomas More and The Two Noble Kinsmen, and he wrote poems, including Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. His 154 sonnets were published, probably without his authorization, in 1609. In 1611 or 1612 he gave up his lodgings in London and devoted more and more time to retirement in Stratford, though he continued writing such plays as The Tempest and Henry VII until about 1613. He died on April 23 1616, and was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford. No collected edition of his plays was published during his life-time, but in 1623 two members of his acting company, John Heminges and Henry Condell, put together the great collection now called the First Folio.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Good Time to Reread This Classic, September 27, 2004

By 

richard_t "richard_t" (Overseas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Merchant of Venice (Folger Shakespeare Library) (Mass Market Paperback)

"Merchant" is categorized among Shakespeare's comedies, primarily because of the romantic subplot that ends --as most of the Bard's comedies do-- in serial weddings. But, of course, it is far more than a typical romantic comedy. Shakespeare ostensibly intended to write about the complicated theme of exterior versus interior. The value of gold and money against the value of friendship and loyalty. Shylock, the Jewish moneylender is portrayed as greedy and more concerned about his money than he is about his own daughter.

But modern readers have a hard time sympathizing with Antonio the Merchant and his superficial and hateful friends, Bassanio, Gratiano, et al. They are racist, quick to judge, wasteful, and unconcerned about others. They are delighted to treat Shylock like a dog and to invent phony excuses for their own nasty behavior. Shylock is no innocent victim. Indeed, he brings about his own ruin. But in a play whose key passage is Portia's courtroom discourse on the quality of mercy, mercy and justice are hard to find in any character. Shakespeare's language is as powerful as ever in this play, but the unlikeable Shylock and the venom doled out to him by his sordid persecutors makes this play a stomach-churning challenge.

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars NOT the Folger Shakespeare Library - No Annotations!, September 11, 2008

By 

Tek2000 (Phoenix, AZ USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Merchant of Venice [with Biographical Introduction] (Kindle Edition)

I clicked on the "Kindle Version" link from the paperback "The Merchant of Venice (Folger Shakespeare Library)" since I had purchased several of the Folger hard-copy editions and found the full facing page annotations a huge help in getting the most from the plays. I was worried that the alternating pages of annotations and text would be a bit cumbersome on the Kindle. I need not have worried, as the annotations, and all other extra features, are MISSING. The product description, however, of the Kindle edition does state that the extra features are present on this eBook. Amazon, please convert the Folger Shakespeare Library to the Kindle including all extra features with annotations. In the meantime, please clean up the descriptions for this product line.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars -The individual Jewish reader's relation to great works of Western Literature with Anti- Semitic elements, January 22, 2006

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Merchant of Venice (Folger Shakespeare Library) (Mass Market Paperback)

I would rather not write this review, or have to relate to the question it raises for me. For that question has been with me most of my adult life. It relates to the question of whether or not it is moral for me as a Jew to read, take pleasure in works of 'high culture' works of even 'greatness' when these have Anti- Semitic elements in them.

The problem is especially acute in regard to this greatest of all human dramatists Shakespeare. From a quite early age Shakespeare's work, especially 'Hamlet' 'Lear' and 'Macbeth' have been sources of uplift and inspiration to me. I have to come know myself and my world better through them.

And Shakespeare the greatest and most admired of writers is of course in Borges words, 'the creator who after God created most'.

How then reconcile this admiration with the knowledge that one of Shakespeare's great plays has as its heart a villain , an object of scorn and ridicule, whose villainy is bound up essentially with his Jewishness?

Here I must say that though I have tried very hard to be on the side of those who believe Shakespeare fundamentally stressed this great speech :

" 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 diseases, heal'd by the same means

warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer

as a Christian is? 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? "

I have in my reading and watching the play come to the conclusion that Shakespeare could accept a Jew as fully human only if he converted to Christianity.

This great play then can be witnessed by me only with a feeling of anger, humiliation and pain.