The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare Essay examples

The merchant of Venice is a drama and romantic play, by William Shakespeare. Regarding the test for the suitors and the final part of the book, the author is inspired by a fourteenth-century Italian novel of Giovanni Fiorentino, called “Il Giannetto”, (Bullough, 1957). The merchant of Venice is believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. It is contained on the First Folio, in the contents of Comedies, sharing certain aspects with others plays. That one traditionally ends with the positive return to order expected from the genre, it also has some characteristics of a tragedy, in particular with regard to the punishment and the oppression that are suffered to Shylock Jew. The peculiarity is the title of this book, “The Merchant of Venice”, in fact, it refers to the character Antonio, and not Shylock, a moneylender, which has a pivotal role in this play. One possible reason is that by calling “The Merchant of Venice”, Shakespeare wanted to focus the attention of the readers, on the

Shakespeare engages a modern audience through the character Shylock. Shylock in The Merchant of Venice is the antagonist of the play and is subject to sequences of misfortune, much to the delight of the Elizabethan audience. However, in a modern context we show slight feelings of sympathy towards him as a result of today’s ideologies. Upon meeting Shylock we see that his religious standing puts him in an isolated position against the Venetian society. A line is recited

As one of the most complex characters in the play, Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio’s purpose is to act as a static catalyst for the death of most of the characters. Shakespeare uses Mercutio’s character cleverly as the kind of character that stays in the background, but influences the rest of the cast in the utmost amount. Mercutio’s light and occasionally sardonic humor at inapt times relieves the play from being a complete tragedy and allows the audience a false sense of security before calamity strikes, such as the death of his character. Mercutio also stands as a consistent character to prove that despite the fact that the majority of Shakespeare’s characters are unpredictable and impulsive, there has to be at least one character to steady

Everyone deals with guilt at least one time throughout their life, and several authors use guilt to help build up suspense in their story. Guilt in Macbeth not only affects his mental state of mind, but it also destroys him physically, along with a few other characters such as Lady Macbeth. The characters are affected by guilt so much, that it actually leads to their death essentially, just because they were not able to handle the consequences for the events that occurred. Despite being destroyed by guilt, they were still forced to carry on with their lives and they did have to try to hide it, even though Macbeth was not doing so well with that. His hallucinations were giving him up and eventually everyone knew the he had murdered Duncan

Franco Zefferelli’s film, Hamlet, adapted from Shakespeare’s text, Mel Gibson’s Hamlet, struts and frets his life in Denmark, convincing almost everyone that he is “mad.” The film bases the question of whether or not Hamlet is actually insane almost solely on Gibson’s acting interpretations, but Zefferelli’s editing choices assist in making the point that Hamlet is not insane, but either in a fog of confusion and anger from his grief, or pretending to be mad to manipulate others.

At the beginning of the play Macbeth is seen as a courageous soldier who is loyal to the King but is corrupted from the witches prophecies and by his and Lady Macbeth’s ambition. Their marriage is of convenience for Lady Macbeth, but for Macbeth it is more than that. He loves his wife, and she takes advantage of that. She is continuously making him feel guilty, for being weak, and challenges his manhood, with these words "When you durst do it, then you were a man, and, to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man." (I,vi,50-52), which means, Be a man, and I will love you as one.

Looking into Shakespeare’s work, the class and I got to view “The Merchant of Venice”. I

William Shakespeare was a very talented man known for his various works of literature. His works include poems, plays, and sonnets. His works are then broken down into tragedies, comedies, and histories. Shakespeare left this world centuries ago, but his writings continue to live throughout the world today. He has greatly impacted the world of literature and his existence will forever be remembered.

Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is so alike to our financially afflicted world. The rules of law and commerce are subject to deceptive manipulation, fear of "the other" overwhelms respect for a common humanity, duplicity is the norm, sexuality is a vehicle for ambition, and money drives and wraps almost every action. It is a classic tale that includes important details of the financial crisis in the United States during 2007-2009. Shakespeare’s Venice, like the New York of his time - and the financial capitals of ours - is a city based on borrowing, on market speculation and greed masquerading as wealth and sophistication. Behind the curtains of the practice of lending and borrowing money in Shakespeare’s play lay the transition to capitalism: the rise of banking system; the scarcity for credit in developing industrial enterprises; and the growing dispute of default facing both aristocratic landlords and, above all, small, independent early entrepreneurs on trading ventures. Even though almost 600 years apart from each other, both Shakespeare’s tale and the financial crisis in the United States during 2007-2009 have a similar financial dilemma, each has its unique Shylock, Bassanio and Antonio- people who were responsible for causing the meltdown of their days.

Who was Shakespeare? Was he a man from Stratford-Upon-Avon who started with little and became the greatest English author to ever live; or was he a privileged Earl who was a favorite at Queen Elizabeth’s court? That is the great mystery. This particular mystery is difficult to solve because of the lack of documentary evidence. The Elizabethans did not believe in getting everything in writing as people do today. Therefore, the truth may never be known with certainty. However, evidence does exist to support at least two theories about the Shakespearean authorship: one that the man from Stratford wrote the works, the other that Edward de Vere the Earl of Oxford was the author. The question then becomes, which

Hamlet is a tragic play, written by William Shakespeare between 1599 and 1602, but as years have gone by, there have been made many movies produced in order to visually illustrate how the events of the play occurred. This allows the film director's interpretation of Hamlet to have an effect on the audience's understanding of the play, because they understand the play the same way as the director. One of the most significant act and scene in the whole play is Act I Scene V. The film work of Hamlet orchestrated by the director really focuses on being exactly as the written play by William Shakespeare. The written work of Hamlet and the movie directed by Franco Zeffirelli have many similar scenes. Act I Scene V is one of the most important

The Merchant of Venus, is a play written by William Shakespeare and is a majority of the time remembered for its scene with Shylock and Antonio. As intricate as the play wove itself, the word that seemed to occur a majority of the time “bonds”, had multiple meanings occurring throughout the play. Oxford English Dictionary (OED) tells us that Bonds can mean the bondage of a marriage, the ways of which a thing is bound or tied down, agreement or engagement binding to him of which who makes it, and a deed, by which binds himself, his heirs, executors, or assigns to pay a certain sum of money. In this play, we see a strong connection between bonds and goods reoccurring from start to finish. The term “bond”, is

William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is a perplexing story of dark humor, race, religion, identity, love, and justice. Generally, most people understand The Merchant of Venice as a comedy about a bitter and outcasted Jewish moneylender named Shylock who seeks revenge against a Christian merchant who has failed to pay his loan back. However, there are many different perspectives on whether The Merchant of Venice is a comedy or a tragedy depending on one’s views on the difference between race and religion. If one views the story as a comedy, it is a dark comedy full of many problems, especially the controversial subject matter of anti-Semitic attitudes of its Christian characters. If one views it as a tragedy, it is a tragedy that concludes with majority of its characters in a “happy ending”—that is if one agrees that Jessica’s decision of love over betraying her father and giving up her Jewish identity is indeed a happy ending.

only chance for some justice, if not in the bond then as a way of

In The Tempest, Shakespeare allows the audience to appreciate the possibilities of utopian society, the good, and bad, so that they can understand the problems that the pursuit of a utopian environment may cause. The Tempest is a window into the dimensions of utopian societies. Shakespeare's play portrays the good and the evil sides of the perfect life. While his characters take on the role of the leaders of the utopian societies, Shakespeare portrays the social questions and beliefs of society of how a utopian environment should be.