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Shylock

 
Shylock

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Shylock



 
 
Shylock is a fictional character in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Although classified as a Shakespearean comedies in the First Folio, and while it shares certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedy, the play is perhaps more remembered for its dramatic scenes, and is best known for...
.

i>The Merchant of Venice, Shylock is a Jewish usurer
Usury

Usury originally meant the charging of interest on loans. This would have included charging a fee for the use of money, such as at a bureau de change....
 who lends money to his Christian
Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism#Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus and interpreted by Christians to have been prophesied in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament....
 rival, Antonio
Antonio (Merchant of Venice)

Antonio is the title character in Shakespeare?s The Merchant of Venice. He is a middle-aged bachelor and merchant by trade who has his financial interests tied up in overseas shipments when the play begins....
, setting the bond
Bond

Bond, bonds, bonded, and bonding may refer to:...
 at a pound of Antonio's flesh. When a bankrupt Antonio defaults on the loan, Shylock demands the pound of flesh, as revenge for Antonio having insulted and spat on him the week before.






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Gilbert Shylock
Shylock is a fictional character in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Although classified as a Shakespearean comedies in the First Folio, and while it shares certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedy, the play is perhaps more remembered for its dramatic scenes, and is best known for...
.

In the play

In The Merchant of Venice, Shylock is a Jewish usurer
Usury

Usury originally meant the charging of interest on loans. This would have included charging a fee for the use of money, such as at a bureau de change....
 who lends money to his Christian
Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism#Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus and interpreted by Christians to have been prophesied in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament....
 rival, Antonio
Antonio (Merchant of Venice)

Antonio is the title character in Shakespeare?s The Merchant of Venice. He is a middle-aged bachelor and merchant by trade who has his financial interests tied up in overseas shipments when the play begins....
, setting the bond
Bond

Bond, bonds, bonded, and bonding may refer to:...
 at a pound of Antonio's flesh. When a bankrupt Antonio defaults on the loan, Shylock demands the pound of flesh, as revenge for Antonio having insulted and spat on him the week before. Meanwhile, his daughter, Jessica, elopes with Antonio's friend Lorenzo and becomes a Christian, further fuelling Shylock's rage.

Shylock E Jessica

Historical background

During Shakespeare's day, money lending was one of the few careers open to Jews, since Jews were forbidden to charge interest to fellow Jews and Christians also followed Old Testament
Old Testament

In Western Christianity, the Old Testament refers to the books that form the first of the two-part Christianity Bible Biblical canon. These works correspond to the Hebrew Bible , with some variations and additions....
 laws condemning usury
Usury

Usury originally meant the charging of interest on loans. This would have included charging a fee for the use of money, such as at a bureau de change....
 charged to fellow Gentiles. In the 16th century, Christians regarded usury as a sin
Sin

Sin is a term used mainly in a religion context to describe an act that violates a morality rule, or the state of having committed such a violation....
. However, Shylock's profession as a moneylender is still frequently used by critics to support claims of anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism

Antisemitism is prejudice against or hostility towards Jews.This prejudice or hostility is usually characterized by a combination of Religion, Race , cultural and ethnic group biases....
 in the play.

Shylock's "Hath not a Jew eyes..." speech, in which he asserts that he is no different than a Christian and deserves revenge as much as they would have it, is one of the most famous soliloquies in English literature
English literature

The term English literature refers to literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; Joseph Conrad was Polish, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, Salman Rushdie is Indian, V.S....
. Some scholars also suggest that Shylock is repeatedly shown to have human qualities and that he becomes a sympathetic character, particularly when he is told about Jessica's betrayal and the loss of his deceased wife's ring.

In the play Shakespeare also makes repeated references to the cruelty Shylock suffers at the hands of Christians. However, the trial scene which is the play's climax is constructed so as to make the audience exhult at Shylock's downfall. The redeeming sides of Shylock's character can be regarded as no more than evidence of Shakespeare's high literary standards and his efforts to give his villains a human depth, as evicent for example in his depiction of Richard III
Richard III

Richard III may refer to:*Richard III of England**Richard III , a play by William Shakespeare***Richard III , a USA film***Richard III , a UK/USA film starring Ian McKellen...
.

Jews were almost universally detested by Christian nations in the 16th century; England
England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
 had expelled all Jews some 300 years prior to Shakespeare's time. It is also important to note that, in Shakespeare's time, tales of Jews exacting pounds of flesh were common folktales.

Notable portrayals

Notable actors who have portrayed Shylock include Richard Burbage
Richard Burbage

Richard Burbage was an actor and theatre owner. He was the younger brother of Cuthbert Burbage. They were both actors in drama.Burbage came from a poor family and was a popular actor by his early 20s....
 in the 16th century, Charles Macklin
Charles Macklin

Charles Macklin , originally Cathal MacLochlainn, was an actor and dramatist born in Culdaff, a village on the scenic Inishowen Peninsula of County Donegal, part of the Province of Ulster in the north of Ireland....
 in 1741, Edmund Kean
Edmund Kean

Edmund Kean was an England actor, regarded in his time as the greatest ever. For many years he lived at Keydell House, Horndean....
 in 1814, William Charles Macready
William Charles Macready

William Charles Macready was an England actor....
 in 1840, Edwin Booth
Edwin Booth

Edwin Thomas Booth , was a famous 19th century United States actor. He was born near Bel Air, Harford County, Maryland into the English American theatrical Booth family....
 in 1861, Henry Irving
Henry Irving

Sir Henry Irving , born John Henry Brodribb, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era. He was the first actor to be awarded a knighthood....
 in 1880, George Arliss
George Arliss

George Arliss was an England Academy Award-winning actor, author, playwright and film maker who found success in United States. He was the first United Kingdom actor to win an Academy Award....
 in 1928, John Gielgud
John Gielgud

Sir Arthur John Gielgud, Order of Merit , Companion of Honour was an England actor and singer, particularly known for his warm and expressive voice, which his colleague Alec Guinness likened to "a silver trumpet muffled in silk"....
 in 1937, Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier

Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, Order of Merit was an English people Stage actor, Theatre director, and Theatrical producer. He is one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century, along with his contemporaries John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft and Ralph Richardson....
 in a 1973 TV production, Al Pacino
Al Pacino

Alfredo James "Al" Pacino is an United States film and theatre actor and Film director, widely considered to be one of the most notable and influential actors of his time....
 in a 2004 feature film
The Merchant of Venice (2004 film)

The Merchant of Venice is a 2004 in film movie based on Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. It is the first full-length sound film version in English of Shakespeare's play; most other versions are videotape productions made for television....
 version, and F. Murray Abraham
F. Murray Abraham

Fahrid Murray Abraham is an Academy Award-winning United States actor. He became known during the 1980s, after winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Amadeus , and has since appeared in many roles, both leading and supporting, in films, television, and mainly on stage....
 at the Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Company

The Royal Shakespeare Company is a British theatre company. Located primarily at Stratford-upon-Avon, with bases also in London and Theatre Royal, Newcastle, it is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly-funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal National Theatre....
 in 2006.

Under Nazi rule in 1943, the Vienna Burgtheater
Burgtheater

The Burgtheater , originally known as K.K. Theater an der Burg, then until 1920 as the K.K. Hofburgtheater, is the Austrian National Theatre in Vienna and one of the most important German language theatre s in the world....
 presented a notoriously extreme production of The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Although classified as a Shakespearean comedies in the First Folio, and while it shares certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedy, the play is perhaps more remembered for its dramatic scenes, and is best known for...
 - with Werner Krauss
Werner Krauss

Werner Johannes Krauss was a Germany stage and film actor.Krauss was born in Sonnefeld, Germany, the son of a clergyman. He ran away from home and joined a travelling theatre company....
 as Shylock, one of several theater and film roles by this actor pandering to antisemitic stereotypes.

Slang

  • The character's name has entered the language as a synonym
    Synonym

    Synonyms are different words with identical or very similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy....
     for loan shark
    Loan shark

    A loan shark is a person or body that offers unsecured loans at high interest rates to individuals, often backed by blackmail or threats of violence....
    , and as a verb
    Verb

    In syntax, a verb is a word that usually denotes an action , an occurrence , or a state of being . Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its grammatical tense, grammatical aspect, grammatical mood and grammatical voice....
    : to shylock is to lend money at exorbitant rates
    Interest rate

    An interest rate is the price a borrower pays for the use of money they do not own, for instance a small company might borrow from a bank to kick start their business, and the return a lender receives for deferring the use of funds, by lending it to the borrower....
    .
  • "Pound of flesh" has also entered the lexicon
    Lexicon

    In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes....
     as slang
    Slang

    Slang is the use of highly informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's dialect or language....
     for a particularly onerous or unpleasant obligation.


Further reading

  • John Gross, Shylock: A Legend and Its Legacy. Touchstone: 1994. ISBN 0-671-88386-0.
  • Kenneth Gross, Shylock Is Shakespeare. University of Chicago Press: 2006. ISBN 0-226-30977-0.
  • James Shapiro, Shakespeare and the Jews. Columbia University Press: 1997. ISBN 0-231-10345-X.
  • Joseph Shatzmiller, Shylock Reconsidered: Jews, Moneylending, and Medieval Society. University of California Press: 1990. ISBN 0-520-06635-9.
  • Martin Yaffe, Shylock and the Jewish Question. Johns Hopkins University Press: 1997. ISBN 0-8018-5648-5.
  • M.G. Vassanji, The In-Between World of Vikram Lall. Doubleday Canada: 2003. ISBN 0-385-65990-3.


External links

Texts
  • . A free source of the play