Background of the The Merchant of Venice

William Shakespeare

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• William Shakespeare lived from 1564 to 1616.
• He is one of the most well-known figures of English literature in the world.
• He did not receive formal education past grammar school.
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• Shakespeare wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets in his time.

The Merchant of Venice

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• The Merchant of Venice was written between 1596 and 1597.
• This play is a romantic comedy but is also known for its dramatic scenes and is interpreted by some to be a tragedy.
• Shakespeare wrote The Merchant of Venice after he had written such plays as Romeo and Juliet and Richard III, but before he wrote the great tragedies of his later years.

The Merchant of Venice and Anti-Semitism

• The Merchant of Venice was written in the Elizabethan era. This period was rather anti-semitic, with English Jews having been expelled from the country in 1290 by Oliver Cromwell.
• Jews in Shakespeare’s England were a marginalized group, and Shakespeare’s contemporaries would have been very familiar with portrayals of Jews as villains and objects of mockery.
• Shakespeare presents Shylock, a Jew, as the antagonist of the play. The character of Shylock is an exaggeration of Jewish stereotypes from this time. One interpretation of the play's structure is that Shakespeare meant to contrast the mercy of the main Christian characters with the vengeful Shylock, who lacks the religious grace to comprehend mercy.