The Merchant of Venice is one of William Shakespeare's best-known plays, written sometime between 1596 and 1598. Although it is sometimes classified as a comedy ("comedy" had a very different meaning at the time; see Shakespearean comedies) and shares certain aspects with the other romantic comedies, it is perhaps more remembered for its dramatic scenes (particularly the trial scene) and is best known for its portrayal of the Jew Shylock, which has raised questions of anti-semitism.
The title character is the merchant Antonio, not the more famous villain, the Jewish moneylender Shylock, who is the play's chief antagonist. Though Shylock is a tormented character, he is also a tormentor, so whether he is to be viewed with disdain or sympathy is up to the audience. The play is accordingly sometimes classified as one of Shakespeare's problem plays.
Shakespeare puts one of his most eloquent speeches into the mouth of this "villain":
- 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?
- If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.
- If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility?
- Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his
- sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge.
- The villainy you teach me, I will execute,
- and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
- Act III, scene I
Directed (1910) by Gerolamo Lo Savio