Shakespeare's The merchant of Venice

Contents

£5 PAGE

The Life of Shakespeare 7

Shakespeare's Plays: Chronological Arrangement . 8

Preface

The edition aims to present the interesting backgrounds of the play, to interpret the text through annotations, and to supply the student with such suggestive questions as will stimulate thoughtful study and encourage mental reaction.

With these aims in mind, the editor has first shown how to understand a play, how to analyze the plots of this particular drama, and what there is of interest in the backgrounds of the play, — i.e. how the social life of the times' is reflected in it. In interpreting the text, such notes are given as will afford a clear understanding of the context without presenting an exhaustive etymological disquisition. Finally, to stimulate profitable study and mental reaction, there has been added a series of lessons, with leading questions and suggested memory work. These are intended to give defmiteness to the individual or class study and to provoke further discussion rather than to supplant the teacher's and student's questions.

In general, the text of the Globe Edition has been followed. However, in some instances the punctuation has been altered; and where the editor has felt that the weight of authority justified it, he has changed the wording of the text. Where the omission of lines has come under consideration, it has been deemed wiser to omit these passages rather than offer a lame substitute.

Introduction

THE LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE

William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-upon-Avon, in April, 1564. The official record in the Parish Church of Stratford has this baptism entry, for the year 1564: April 26th Gulielmus, filius, Johannes Shakespeare. Since it was the custom to have children baptized on the third day after birth, it would seem that the date to be accepted as the poet's birthday is April 23.

John Shakespeare, his father, lived in Henley Street. He was a glover and dealer in wool and other country produce. His mother, Mary Arden, came from an old Warwickshire family. William was the third child, and after his birth five other children were born.

The family lived in comfort when William was a child. His mother had possessed a considerable estate. His father, when the child was five years old, was elected to the office of High Bailiff, or Mayor. But this comfort was to last for but a short time. In 1578 the father became involved in debt and effected a mortgage of £10. upon his wife's estate.

Very few facts are known about the boyhood of William. It is probable that he attended the Grammar School at Stratford. Ben Jonson speaks of the poet's having acquired a "little Latin and less Greek". From his writings we must conclude that he somewhere gained no inconsiderable classical education. He quoted from Virgil, Horace, Terence, and Seneca. One may see in the Museum at Stratford the desk that tradition says was occupied by the boy.

In 1582 the boy of eighteen married Anne Hathaway, who was eight years his senior. She lived in the little village of Shottery, a mile away from Stratford. Her home is to-day in the hands of descendants and is a shrine for many pilgrims. The long, two-storied house is approached by a paved path, bordered by flower beds. The latticed windows peep from beneath the overhanging thatch roof. Their first child, Susanna, was born in 1583, and the twins Judith and Hamnet in 1585.

There are several traditions regarding youthful escapades of -Shakespeare, but little reliability can be placed upon their truth. Sir Thomas Lucy is said to have had him whipped on account of the boy's stealing of venison and rabbits from his private park.

It would seem that the year after his marriage Shakespeare went to London, where he became an actor. Beginning in a very humble capacity, he worked his way upward. At once he began the writing of plays. It is agreed that his first play was Love's Labour Lost, which appeared about 1591. He was then twenty-seven. For nineteen years (1591-1610) he continued the writing of plays, the last being The Tempest.

That he was a good actor seems beyond doubt. An old stage tradition speaks of him as the original Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet. He became prosperous and was highly honored in London. This enabled him to help his father in a court action and also to recover some of the property that had formerly belonged to his mother, but which had become heavily mortgaged.

The poet spent his last days, after 1612, in his old home village of. Stratford. Here he had left his family when he went away to the city. He purchased New Place, one of the largest houses in the town. Although he paid several visits to the city, he spent most of the time quietly at home.

Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616 and was buried in the Stratford church. His wife and two daughters, Susanna and Judith, were living at the time of his death.

SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

A Chronological Arrangement 1590-1611

Comedies Histories Tragedies

Love's Labour Lost Comedy of Errors 1 Henry VI 2 Henry VI Two Gentlemen of Richard III Romeo and Juliet

Verona 3 Henry VI

King John Titus Andronicus

INTRODUCTION

II. Comedies A Midsummer

Night's Dream All's Well that

Ends Well Taming of the

Shrew

Merry Wives of Windsor

Merchant of Venice

Much Ado About Nothing

As You Like It

Histories Richard II

1 Henry IV

2 Henry IV

Henry V

Tragedies

III. Twelfth Night

Troilus and Cres-

sida Measure for Measure

Pericles

Julius Caesar Hamlet

Othello Macbeth King Lear Timon of Athens Antony and Cleopatra

IV. Cymbeline Winter's Tale The Tempest

Henry VIII

Coriolanus

I. Period of Apprenticeship. 1590-1593 Love Plays.

II. Period of Attainment. 1594-1599 Comedies of love.

III. Period of Gloom. 1600-1608 Gloomy tragedies.

IV . Period of Quietude . 1 609-1 61 1 Plays of quiet life .

THE THEATRE IN SHAKESPEARE'S TIME

The early productions were given in the courtyards of inns. The balconies of these inns served well as galleries. Troupes of actors went from town to town, giving performances.

But the strong feeling of the Puritans against theatrical entertainments resulted in a law which prevented any theatre being built within the precincts of the city of London. James Burbage, who had successfully organized one of these traveling troupes of actors, decided, in 1574, to build a theatre on the banks of the Thames, just outside the city limits. He had given performances at Stratford, and undoubtedly the boy Shakespeare had witnessed some. The spot selected by Burbage was the site of a former monastery of the "Black Brothers," and the name given to the new playhouse was Blackfriars Theatre. When Shakespeare came to London as a young man, it was probably at this theatre that he secured employment. Other theatres followed this: The Curtain, The Globe, The Fortune, The Swan, and The Rose.

Burbage 's theatre was round in shape; some of these buildings had the shape of a polygon. Only the stage and the boxes were covered; the poor people were not protected from the weather. The floor, now the location of the orchestra seats, was at that time called the " pit ". It was occupied by the poor people, who paid a penny as their admission price. They sat on boxes or on the bare ground. Above them was the open sky. Shakespeare, in Hamlet, speaks of them as "groundlings". There were one or two balconies which ran around the walls, and over the stage was another balcony used by the wealthy people. It was also customary for those who paid the highest admission price (perhaps two shillings) to sit on the stage itself, and to feel free, at times, to promenade upon the stage. One of the balconies, near the stage, was used by the red-liveried members of the orchestra.

The conduct of the "groundlings" was far from commendable. They ate food, played cards, drank freely, and kept up a noisy disturbance which at times became boisterous. At times they would jeer at the actors, and they were known to vent their feelings by throwing food at the players.

Covered boxes near the stage were called the "lords' rooms".

Either here or on the stage sat the wealthy people. The "groundlings" often displayed their feeling toward them.

The stage was a platform which extended well out into the "pit". Back of it was a two-storied structure, — the first floor serving as a dressing-room, and the second floor as a part of the stage setting and also as a box for lords and ladies of the audience. Painted movable scenery was not known before 1600, and a change of scene was announced by a printed notice, — as, for example: Venice; A Forest. Black sky-hangings were used in tragedies and blue in comedies. Sometimes there was an inner stage setting, which would be revealed by the withdrawing of a curtain. It is doubtful, however, if there were any drop-curtain on the front of the stage. On account of this absence of a curtain, there was no such scene division as we are accustomed to have. You will find that the scene divisions are not to be seen in the early folios. This necessitated, at the end of a scene of tragedy the dragging off the stage of the bodies of the dead. There was a trap-door in the centre of the stage to be used when ghosts appeared. The floor was strewn with rushes, giving it the color of nature. The actors would bring on the stage the furniture needed, as chairs, tables, and trees. In a war scene a tent might be set up and given a label to indicate that it represented an encamped army. One device to indicate a change of location of a scene would be for one actor to invite another to walk with him to another town ; in this way the audience became aware that the scene had shifted. Then again, the audience were accustomed to tell by the door through which an actor entered whether a scene had changed its setting.

The parts were all taken by men or boys with treble voices. Coarse as the plays were in Shakespeare's day, they lacked the greater coarseness of a later period when women began to take part in the performances of the degenerate nature of the Restoration plays. Probably few women were to be found in the audience. The costumes of the actors were gorgeous. It was the custom for each actor to secure his own costumes, and no effort was made to suit a costume to a part. Julius Caesar might appear in a robe that the actor had hired or bought from an English lord.

A weekly salary was paid the actors; the best actors, however, served as the managers of their own theatres.

Performances took place every day, including Sunday. The hour of commencement was announced by the blowing of a trumpet from the roof of the theatre. Posters were used to advertise the play, but no programs were printed. This is important to remember, for we depend, to-day, upon the program to learn the setting and characters of the play. In reading a Shakespeare play it is a good plan to study to see if you can find out m what way an audience in Shakespeare's days might determine these two things. As a further announcement of the commencement of the play, a flag was raised on the roof of the building. The performances came in the afternoon of necessity, since there was no means of lighting the theatre; and they lasted from two to two and a half hours.

When the play opened, there would first be a parade of all the actors on the stage. The prologue was then read by a person wearing a long black robe. Between the acts there were musical interludes, pantomimes, and the dancing of clowns. Although the Queen never went to the theatre, it was customary to have a prayer offered for her, during which all the actors knelt. Such plays as the Queen witnessed were given at the Castle. Shakespeare and his company frequently went to the Castle to present plays before Her Majesty.

HOW TO UNDERSTAND A PLAY

The technical study of a play is of secondary importance to the enjoyment of the play that is gained by each reader's perusing the story to gain his own impressions, regardless of technical laws. However, there are certain terms and rules of the game, as it were, that are valuable to the study of a play.

1. Tragedy. — A tragedy is a serious play, dealing with serious themes, especially with suffering. It must end unhappily to be a tragedy. For example, Macbeth deals with the murder of Duncan and the death of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Other tragedies also occur in the story.

2. Comedy. — A comedy is a play that deals with the follies and absurdities of life. It thus is in contrast to the tragedy, since it avoids the portrayal of suffering and ends happily. The under plot of a tragedy may introduce a comic situation. This, however, is not done as a major element in the play, but is put in to relieve the tension of the tragic situation or to make more impressive the succeeding tragic action. Some of Shakespeare's plays are of such a character as to seem to intermingle the tragic and comic. Measure for Measure, for example, which was written at a time when the poet was experiencing unhappiness in his own life, has considerable of the dark and painful element in it.

Modern comedies are in most instances one of two kinds: (1) Farce, dealing with some absurdity of custom, (2) Burlesque, the ludicrous and exaggerated parody upon the more serious things of life.

3. The Title.— The title of a play should be fitting. Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer is well named, for the plot centres about the stooping of Kate Hardcastle to the position of barmaid, a position she assumes for the purpose of spying upon the actions of others, and as a result of which she conquers a lover. Is The Merchant of Venice well named? Is Antonio the central figure? What character do the great actors choose?

4. The Unities. — The idea of the unities is traced to the writings of Aristotle. It was claimed that there should be three unities in a drama: (1) of Place, (2) of Time, (3) of Action. The first unity requires that there shall be no extensive change of scene; the second unity requires that the entire action occur within 24 hours; and the third unity requires that all the incidents of the drama centre about a single plot. Aristotle insisted that only one of these unities is necessary, — that of action. Shakespeare also observed but this one. How far are the unities observed in The Merchant of Venice?

5. The Exposition. — By exposition is meant the necessary information regarding the actions of the characters prior to the time when the play opens, also the plans or intentions they have in mind. We must know this in order to follow the action of the play. In the plays of Shakespeare the Prologue served this purpose in part. In the prologue we learri what has preceded the action at the beginning of the first scene. In other plays we learn these facts from the speeches in the first act. Sometimes one character talks to another and tells him incidents that he already knows, but which the audience need to know. Thus Bassanio tells Antonio of his needs of money and of his plan to win it. This comes in the first act.

6. The Struggle. — The basis of the plot of a drama lies in the fact that there are two opposing forces or desires that come in conflict. One character has a desire for something, but there are obstacles that come in the way to prevent the fulfilment of this desire. This obstacle may be something within him, something without him, or the opposing will of another character. Without this struggle the drama would be lifeless and uninteresting. We enjoy watching this struggle and we become interested to see how it is coming out. In a tragedy, the battle is lost; in a comedy there are none the less obstacles, but they are not of the tragic kind.

7. Climax. — Not only the play as a whole, but each act should have a climax. In a plot there are different incidents, all leadmg up to one of greatest importance, which is called the climax. It is this arrangement of the incidents that gives the play its compelling interest.

8. The Denouement. — The climax is the high water mark of the plot. Following this there may be a few incidents that serve to unravel the tangle into which the action has come. This letting down of the action is called the denouement. Shakespeare is careful not to have the action stop abruptly at the climax; he follows it by a bit of action or speaking that softens the sharp tone of the climax. Otherwise we should be stirred to deep emotion and left there with nothing to quiet the feeling. It is interesting to observe the invariable use he makes of this device.

9. The Mystery. — In a novel we are kept until the end to learn the solution of the mystery. The suspense is sustained until a final climax is reached. This cannot be done in a play. Very early we learn what is likely to be the fate of the characters. Our pleasure comes in observing the way in which the characters, who do not know what we of the audience do know, struggle and are in perplexity over the situations in which they are placed.

10. Character Portrayal. — To live permanently, a play must have strong character portrayal. We get great enjoyment from the plot, especially if it has a good deal of movement; but in the last analysis, it is the living, vital, natural characterizations that make the play one of lasting importance. It is this that makes the dramas of Shakespeare so great and permanent. In a play like The Merchant of Venice there are several most improbable situations as far as the action goes. The choosing of the caskets and the legal phases of the court scene present many improbabilities, but these are of secondary importance in the face of the wonderful portrayal of Shylock's character. It is this character portrayal that forms the basis of our deepest study. Shakespeare wrote of types of life that people of his day would know and appreciate, but he had the genius as did none of his contemporaries to so weave his picture of the characters that they seem to belong to any age.

THE DATE AND THE SOURCES OF THE PLOT

1 . The Date. — The Merchant of Venice was probably written in 1598, as witnessed by the appearance of the name of the play on a list of plays which appeared that year, and as further evidenced by the entry on the Register of the Stationers' Company. It was published two years later, 1600, in two Quartos. The title of one of these Quartos reads: "The most excellent Historie of the Merchant of Venice. With the extreame crueltie of Shylocke the Iewe towards the sayd Merchant, in cutting a iust pound of his flesh: and the'obtayning of Portia by the choyse of three chests. As it hath beene diners times acted by the Lord Chamberlaine his Seruants. Written by William Shakespeare At London, Printed by I. R., for Thomas Heyes, and are to be sold in Paules Church-yard, at the signe of the Greene Dragon. 1600."

2. Sources of the Plot. — The probability is that the story of the play was patterned from a tale in II Perorone, a collection of short stories by Giovanni Florentino, which had been published some forty years before the play appeared. This tale relates how a wealthy merchant befriends a young kinsman, who is seeking the hand of a rich lady in Belmont and who, in order to win her, must pass a certain test. The merchant engages with a wealthy Jew to secure the money needed by the kinsman, the bond becomes forfeit after the loss of the merchant's ships, and the death of the unfortunate merchant at the hands of the cruel Jew seems imminent. The lady assumes the garments of a lawyer, enters the court, and turns the scales in favor of the merchant in the same way as in the play. The incidents following closely resemble the story of the play. Shakespeare, however, introduced the idea of the caskets into the original story. This may have come from a similar idea in one of the stories in the Gesta Jtomanorum, a Latin compilation of stories of the Middle

THE METRE I. Metre in General

Metre is the rhythmic arrangement of syllables in poetry. The rhythm depends upon the accent which comes at regular intervals, just as in music.

Every line, or verse, of poetry is made up of groups of syllables, each group having an accented syllable and either one or two unaccented syllables. The group itself is called a foot. We may represent the accented syllable of the foot by a mark ( — ) and the unaccented syllable by another mark (^— ). The end of the foot may be indicated by what in music would be called a bar ( | ). Notice the markings of this familiar line: -~| — I - r \ -v-|

Tell me not in mournful numbers

A verse of one foot is called monometer; of two feet, dimeter; of three feet, trimeter; of four feet, tetrameter; of five feet, pentameter; of six feet, hexameter.* What would you call the line given above?

The ancient Greeks gave us the names we use for the different kinds of feet as well as for the different kinds of metre. Thus, a trochaic foot is a foot having an accented and an unaccented syllable ( — *-" ) ; an iambic foot is one having an unaccented and an accented syllable (^ — ); a dactylic foot is one having an accented and two unaccented syllables ( — ^ ^ ) ; an anapaestic foot is one having two unaccented and an accented syllable (— ' w — ) ; and a spondaic foot is one having two accented syllables ( ). The first line of The Merchant of Venice is thus

marked:

In sooth I know not why I am so sad;

The line is called iambic pentameter, — each foot being iambic and the line having five feet. What would you call the line quoted before this?

The standard line in Shakespeare's plays is iambic pentameter. It is called heroic verse.

Blank verse is unrhymed verse. Most of Shakespeare's lines are unrhymed, although you will occasionally find near the end of a scene a few that are rhymed. For example, in The Merchant of Venice, notice the last lines of Act II, Scene 5:

Shylock. Fast bind, fast find, — A proverb never stale in thrifty mind.

Jessica. Farewell; and if my fortune be not crost, I have a father, you a daughter, lost.

II. The Metre of the Merchant of Venice

1. Use of Prose. — Abbott, in A Shakespearean Grammar, says: "Prose is not only used in comic scenes; it is adopted for letters (Merchant of Venice IV. 1. 149-164), and on other occasions where it is desirable to lower the dramatic pitch. ... It is also used to express frenzy, . . . and madness, . . . and the higher flights of the imagination."

Poetry is better suited than is prose to express the lighter moods of love and joy, as in the love scene in Act V. It gives life and vivacity to a scene where much action is needed, as in the court scene. Prose, on the contrary, better expresses the calmer mood of contemplation, and it is suited to a scene where the speakers are quietly discussing a general question, as in the scene where Portia and Nerissa are talking over the suitors. An unemotional character may well reveal his lack of sensibility by using prose, as does Launcelot throughout the play. Prose, then, may show the mood either of a situation or of a character. This play affords opportunity for a considerable use of it.

2. Use of Rhyme. — Abbott says: "Rhyme was often used as an effective termination at the end of a scene. When the scenery was not changed, or the arrangements were so defective that the change was not easily perceptible, it was, perhaps, additionally desirable to mark that a scene was finished. . . . Rhyme was also sometimes used in the same conventional way, to mark an aside, which otherwise the audience might have great difficulty in knowing to be an aside."

The earliest plays of Shakespeare, like Love's Labour Lost, make a very considerable use of rhymed verse. In this early period, besides producing plays he was writing a good many poems; and the influence of this is found in the appearance of so much rhymed verse in the early plays. Gradually there came to be a diminished use of rhyme.

In this play we find rhymed couplets used either at the end of a scene or when an actor is making his exit. It is apparent that Shakespeare has in mind the intention of expressing a change of mood or an intensifying of mood in this variation from blank verse. For example, at the end of Act II, Portia has just bid farewell to Arragon, after the moments of considerable tension ; and she is told of Bassanio's approach. The rhymed lines well express the awakening of happier emotion. Nerissa, in a similar mood, echoes the sentiment by adding a rhymed line.

3. Varied Forms of Verse. — The normal verse, in Shakespeare's plays, as we know, is iambic pentameter, — heroic verse.

There are a good many variations, however, from this standard.

(1) One or two syllables are sometimes added at the end of the line.

And the same prayer doth teach us all to rend er How doth that roy al mer chant, good An to ni o ?

(2) Some lines are incomplete.

What sum owes he the Jew?

At times, however, the next speaker completes the metrical line:

Bas. For me, three thou sand due ats.

- I- - I Port. What, no more?

(3) At times a trochaic foot appears to vary the metre.

Rating my self at noth ing, you shall see.

(4) Where there is a pause within the line, there may appear an added syllable.

I lose your com pany: therefore forbear a while.

(5) Occasionally the Alexandrine is used. This line has six accents. One form is the trimeter couplet.

Who choos eth me shall gain what ma ny men desire.

BACKGROUNDS OF THE PLAY 1. The Attitude Toward the Jews

In the time in which the play was written, there was a most unfair and cruel treatment of the Jews in England. In 1594, which was about the time the play was written, Dr. Lopez, who had been at one time court physician to Queen Elizabeth, was hanged under the false suspicion of having attempted to poison the queen. Frequently there had been severe persecutions of these people. Way back in 1290, Edward I had issued an edict, driving them from England, and leaving in the hands of the king all their property. This edict had been in force throughout the three hundred years up to Elizabeth's day. They had continued to live secretly in England, but it was not until the eighteenth century that they were privileged to enjoy civil rights in England. In Italy, however, the treatment had been much more charitable; and they were to be found in all the cities, living in comparative peace.

We must remember that the play was written by an English writer who lived in the age of intolerance toward these people. There would be little sympathy for Shylock among the people in the audiences that listened to Shakespeare's plays.

At the time that this play was being produced, there was being acted a new play, The Jew of Malta, written by Marlowe. This was most unfair to the Jews, but it received a popular verdict of approval. Then again, in 1701, Lord Lansdowne wrote a new version of The Merchant of Venice, in which Shylcck was made to be a comic character of the coarsest kind. This won much approval in its day, but it was a false perversion of the interpretation of Shylock's character as Shakespeare intended it to be.

In 1814, the great Shakespearean actor, Kean, ventured to give a new interpretation of the play. He maintained that Shylock had been misunderstood, and he represented him as a man who had the wrongs of his people at heart and whose embitterment was justified by the treatment he received from the other characters in the play. This interpretation has been imitated by most of the great actors since the time of Kean. To-day it is this attitude that is generally taken toward Shylock and toward the play. Interpreting it in this light, the play is raised far above the coarse burlesque nature that it had in the intolerant days of old.

2. The Italian Setting

a. Venice. — We should keep in mind the ideas which prevailed in England in the time of Shakespeare of the magnificence of Venice. In the age of the poet, Venice was gazed on with admiration by the people of every country, and by none with more devotion than those of England. Her merchants were princes, her palaces were adorned with the works of Titian, and she was the seat of all pleasant delights, "the pleasure-place of all festivity, the revel of the world, the masque of Italy." Coryat, an English traveler, speaks of the palazzos of the merchants in the vicinity of the city, of the Rialto, and of the Ghetto, one of the islands on which the Jews lived, who were in number five or six thousand. He describes their dress: those born in Italy wearing red hats, while the Eastern Jews wore yellow turbans. —