The Merchant of Venice

Shakespeare: The Critical Tradition

William Baker, Brian Vickers, Joseph Candido, Brian Vickers

• Publisher: The Arden Shakespeare
• Year: 2025
• Edition: 2
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350398986
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Shakespeare Drama
• Index: Literature

This volume documents the full tradition of criticism of The Merchant of Venice ranging from 1775 to 1939.

The Merchant of Venice has always been regarded as one of Shakespeare's most interesting plays, though it poses many challenges due to what is seen as its inherent anti-Semitism. Before the 19th century critical reaction is relatively fragmentary, but between then and the late 20th century the critical tradition reveals the power of the play to evoke emotion in the theatre. Since the middle of the 20th century, reactions to the drama have been influenced by the Nazi destruction of European Jewry.

An extensive introduction charts the reactions to the play up to the beginning of the 21st century and reflects changing reactions to prejudice in this period. Material by a variety of critics appears here for the first time since initial publication, including from Malone, Hazlitt, Jameson, Heine, Knight, Lewes, Halliwell-Phillips, Furnivall, Irving, Ruskin, Swinburne, Masefield, Gollancz and Quiller-Couch.

This revised edition features a new supplementary introduction by Gary Watt surveying and analyzing trends in criticism since the volume was first published in 2005, including a focus on:
* Jewishness and anti-Semitism and the character of Shylock
* mercantile, financial, risk, insurance, usury and credit
* trial, law, rhetoric, equity and justice
* gender, queer themes, cross-dressing and the Antonio-Bassanio relationship
* race and colonialism.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Contents
• General Editor’s Preface
• General editors’ preface to the revised series
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Gary Watt, ‘Supplementary Introduction’ to William Baker, Brian Vickers and Gary Watt (eds) The Merchant of Venice: Shakespeare: The Critical Tradition Revised Edition
• 1 Georg Lichtenberg, on Macklin’s Shylock, 1775
• 2 Richard Hole, an ‘apology’ for Shylock, 1796
• 3 August Wilhelm von Schlegel, ‘one of Shakespeare’s most perfect works’, 1815
• 4 William Hazlitt, Kean’s debut as Shylock, 1816
• 5 William Hazlitt, sympathy for Shylock, but not for Portia, 1817
• 6 Augustine Skottowe, the major sources, 1824
• 7 George Farren, in defence of Shylock, 1833
• 8 Anna Brownell Jameson, Portia, 1833
• 9 Thomas Campbell, Shylock ‘ill-used’, 1838
• 10  Heinrich Heine, Shakespeare justifies ‘an unfortunate race’, 1838
• 11  Hermann Ulrici, summum jus summa injuria, 1839
• 12  Charles Knight, lessons of charity, 1849
• 13  George Henry Lewes, Shylock’s humanity, 1850
• 14  Henry Norman Hudson, Shakespeare’s evenhandedness, 1851
• 15  James O. Halliwell-Phillipps, human rights and religious belief, 1856
• 16  William Watkiss Lloyd, sympathetic liberality versus murderous avarice, 1856
• 17  Henrietta Palmer, in praise of Portia, 1859
• 18  Friedrich Kreyssig, ‘a just estimate of things’, 1862
• 19  Charles Cowden Clarke, Shakespeare’s love of justice, 1863
• 20  Georg G. Gervinus, ‘the relation of man to property’, 1863
• 21  John Ruskin, Shylock ‘the corrupted merchant’, 1873
• 22  James Spedding, Portia the central character, 1875
• 23  Frederick James Furnivall, Shylock ‘the hero of the piece’, 1877
• 24  Denton Jaques Snider, a Hegelian reading, 1877
• 25  Frederick William Hawkins, a plea for toleration, 1879
• 26  Henry Irving, Shylock: an actor’s view, 1879
• 27  Frederick James Furnivall, not a doctrinal play, 1879
• 28  James Spedding, ‘not about Jewish grievances’, 1879
• 29  Israel Davis, Shylock’s ‘nobility and distinction’, 1879
• 30  David Anderson, Shylock ‘a product of history’, 1879
• 31  Oscar Wilde, a sonnet to Portia, 1879
• 32  Sidney Lee, ‘the Lopez case’ and Shakespeare’s Jew, 1880
• 33  Henry James, a critique of Irving and Terry, 1881
• 34  Charles Kensington Salaman, Shylock from a Jewish point of view, 1882
• 35  Joseph Hatton, an interview with Henry Irving, 1884
• 36  Richard G. Moulton, Shakespeare’s interweaving of plots, 1885
• 37  Helena Faucit, on acting Portia, 1885
• 38  M. Leigh-Noel, Portia’s womanliness, 1885
• 39  El Seyonpi, privileged Christian, proscribed Jew, 1885
• 40  William Poel, staging the play, 1887
• 41  Edwin Booth, Shylock’s ‘revengeful selfishness’, 1888
• 42  Francis A. Marshall, ‘the first of his [Shakespeare’s] great comedies’, 1888
• 43  Sir George Heynes Radford, Shylock’s character determined by the plot, 1894
• 44  Frederick Samuel Boas, Shakespeare’s concession to bigotry, 1896
• 45  Georg Brandes, Shylock ‘a monster of passionate hatred, not avarice’, 1898
• 46  A. W. Verity, Shylock and modern criticism, 1898
• 47  C. H. Herford, ‘two communities which meet but never mingle’, 1900
• 48  Stopford A. Brooke, ‘some faint sympathy’ for Shylock, 1905
• 49  Charles Knox Pooler, Shylock ‘a man of one idea’, 1905
• 50  Otto Jespersen, Shylock’s language, 1905
• 51  Sir Walter Raleigh, Shylock more sinned against than sinning, 1907
• 52  Theodore Watts-Dunton, ‘untrammelled’ as against ‘plot-ridden’ characters, 1907
• 53  E. K. Chambers, the opposing principles of Love and Hate, 1908
• 54  Algernon Swinburne, Shylock less sinned against than sinning, 1909
• 55  William Poel, Shakespeare’s Jew and Marlowe’s Christians, 1909
• 56  E. E. Stoll, Shylock a comic villain, 1911
• 57  William Winter, Shylock and his interpreters, 1911
• 58  Sir Israel Gollancz, ‘man is what man had made him’, 1916
• 59  Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, Shakespeare’s ‘stage-cleverness’ and the story’s ‘monstrous absurdity’, 1916
• 60  Isador Henry Coriat, Shylock’s anal-erotic tendencies, 1921
• 61  Gerald Friedlander, Shylock not an authentic Jew, 1921
• 62  Levin L. Schücking, Shylock’s self-revelation in soliloquy, 1922
• 63  E. E. Stoll, Shakespeare’s intentions and the dynamics of comedy, 1927
• 64  Andrew Tretiak, the ‘alien’ question, 1929
• 65  Harley Granville-Barker, Shakespeare’s attention to character and story, 1930
• 66  Cecil Roth,Shylock the Venetian, 1933
• 67  Thomas Arthur Ross, Antonio a depressive homosexual, 1934
• 68  John W. Draper, Shylock a London usurer, 1935
• 69  Caroline Spurgeon, the distribution of imagery within the play, 1935
• 70  G. Wilson Knight, the idea of riches, true and false, 1936
• 71  John Middleton Murry, Shakespeare’s ‘matter-of-fact fairy tale’, 1936
• 72  H. B. Charlton, the two Shylocks, 1938
• 73  John Dover Wilson, anti-Semitism, ancient and modern, 1938
• 74  Mark Van Doren,no hint ‘where Shakespeare’s sympathies lay’, 1939
• Notes
• Select Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright