The Merchant of Venice Critical Essays [Paperback]

This volume is a collection of all-new original essays covering everything from feminist to postcolonial readings of the play as well as source queries and analyses of historical performances of the play.

The Merchant of Veniceis a collection of seventeen new essays that explore the concepts of anti-Semitism, the work of Christopher Marlowe, the politics of commerce and making the play palatable to a modern audience. The characters, Portia and Shylock, are examined in fascinating detail. With in-depth analyses of the text, the play in performance and individual characters, this book promises to be the essential resource on the play for all Shakespeare enthusiasts.

Acknowledgments  Contributors  General Editor's Introduction  Introduction, John W. Mahon and Ellen Macleod Mahon  Shakespeare's Merchantand Marlowe's Other Play, Murray J. Levitch  Jewish Daughters: The Question of Philo-Semitism in Elizabethan Drama, John Ozark Holmer  Jessica, John Drakakis  Textual Delivery in The Merchant of Venice, John F. Andrews  Portia and the Ovidian Grotesque, John W. Velz  Does Source-Criticism Illuminate the Problems of Interpreting The Merchantas a Soured Comedy? John K. Hale  Shylock Is Content: A Study in Salvation, Hugh J. Short  Isolation to Communion: A Reading of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Maryellen Keefe  The Less into the Greater: Emblem, Analogue, and Deification in The Merchant of Venice, John Cunningham and Stephen Slimp  Nerissa Teaches Me What to Believe : Portia's Wifely Empowerment in The Merchant ofVenice, Corrine S. AbatelS"