Find A Flaw
>>8023719
Not enough hand-rubbing.
>>8023719
a kike was cheated and wronged while it's kikes are supposed to cheat and wrong
the kike was a fool who forget that the force draws its own laws and bids the existing ones to its favour
also portia is extremely unlikeable
not being able to find theorson welles version is a flaw desu
>>8023724
You're misinterpreting the book. The whole point was that in the end, because Shylock choose to follow the letter of the law exactly rather than showing mercy and charity, the law treated him the same way. Portia gave him every chance to act virtuously, and still in the end they forgave him. It's not like they caught him on a technicality, he tried to fucking murder someone.
It's probably a mistake to view Baroque Comedy as a deep existential drama. Students are told to read it as a drama and they fail to understand that it's ultimately intended to be played lighter.
The play isn't called 'The Money-lender of Venice', it concerns Antonio, a Venetian Merchant. At this time, Shakespeare's audience would recognize Shylock as being *in* Venice, not of it. The play is not a group portrait, Shylock is an individual weighing himself against larger social bodies.. after he wins the legal battle, he's obliged to put himself in the Christian's shoes for a change, and that's his moment of revelation (it shouldn't be played as a cheap consternation).
However, there are slights against groups like the Saxon nobility, which is understandable in the religious context of the era, where Shakespeare is clearly pulling for the Counter-Reformation. What would Hitler have made of that? It probably went over his head.
>>8023880
Are you a professional writer? I enjoyed reading you post.
Another element of Counter-Reformationist thought in The Merchant of Venice is in the character of Lancelot Gobbo... It may seem snide, but it's possible that this character is a Shakespearean caricature of Launcelot Andrewes.
>>8023719
Portia is a rich girls name so you cant read her without thinking like
>ooh daddy buy me a pony
Shakespeare may as well have called her Mackenzie
>>8023886
No, nowhere near, but thank you for that. I find that amateur artists are generally very good at analyzing works by other artists, and if that has rubbed off on me in any way, then I'm glad to have it. C.S. Lewis was the first author to make a real impact on the way I parse words out, he could probably help anyone with that.
>>8023719
Venice is a smelly shit hole
>>8023773
except it's wrong
to begin with, if the law accepts contracts like taking away a pound of human's flesh from the debtor on certain conditions, the common sense tells that the bloodshed is inevitable. now, let's suppose you and me make a contract so i had to give you, say, a car for some service and then i refuse to give it to you claiming that i didn't agree to give you the dirt which stuck to its wheels and my hair which stuck into its seats, and the judge decides in my favor because he suddenly is my relative
but it wasn't the all, they later robbed the jew of all his possessions basing on the very same contract, because they decided that since they dislike it, it's not ok. when they borrowed the money the prospect of the possible body harm or death from the arms of the jew was ok to them but when they had to pay their debt they suddenly remembered another law which made the original contract a grave offense
>in the end they forgave him
by 'forgave' that you mean they forced him to convert into christianity and to marry his daughter to a christian and to will all his money to them
nope, that book is completely unfair to the jew, they are swindlers who used their power not to pay their debt
>>8023880
Goddamn it I read this in Frank Costanza's voice
>>8023988
I have to agree here. I was hoping Shylock would just go for broke and try to stab Antonio in the face after that bullshit scheme ruined him.
>>8023719
Shakespeare's anti-semitic forced conversion of Shylock.
t. harold bloom
It's a rip off of the Jew of Malta
my main issue with the merchant of venice, despite how strong the shylock storyline and character can be read, is the existence of two relatively unrelated plots that are tenuously tied together. the portia-bassanio plot has very little to do with the main merchant of venice/shylock story, and portia was only introduced as a random deux ex machina to solve antonio's issues. and yes, while bassanio's speech on gold, silver, and lead was extremely beautiful, the entire thing lacked any depth of character or insight that we've come to expect from billy memeshakes.
>>8024006
>Jerry Seinfeld starring as Antonio
>Julia-Louise Dreyfuss as Portia
>Jerry Stiller as Shylock
>Michael Richards as Lancelot Gobbo
>>8024575
In a total structural sense that's true, but it's a bit like saying an Elaine-George plot has little to do with Jerry, Kramer and George's dad.
>>8025284
i think the comedic aspects of the portia-bassanio storyline didnt tie in well with the more serious reading (which is standard these days) of shylock storyline.
whereas in many other shakespeare plays the marraige of comedy and tragedy seems more coherent, in merchant it feels a bit disjointed.
>>8025303
Yeah, the modern interpretation doesn't make any sense and it projects a kind of somber pragmatism that Shakespeare probably didn't wear on his sleeve. Think of it as a 'very special' episode of your favourite sitcom, anon.
http://youtu.be/bQwi5Yy44_8
>>8023719
It portrays a Jew as being mean and therefore caused the Holocaust, the worst crime in the history of the universe.
>>8025380
This T B H F A M
Shakespeare has the blood of seven-trillion innocent Jewish babies on his hands.
