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Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries & Replies From Everyone Else 3.15.97: Top | Help
No, I don't think your take on Shylock is fair or even correct. He is the stereotypical comic Elizabethan villain in many ways, but Shakespeare has, as in almost every play, gone beyond. I don't agree w/ the Jewish Defense League, but I can understand their rage. I don't agree w/ Shylock's choice of revenge, but I can understand it, too. Read the speech again-- the one about how Jews are human beings too. Then imagine spending your life as an alien, despised for your very existance, scorned for being a usurer, yet expected to serve as one nonetheless. (After all, YOUR Roman Catholic faith would not allow Christians to lend money at interest, but it certainly needed SOMEONE to do it. And who better than those despised Jews, since the Church-controlled civil authorities would not allow them to own anything they could not transport on their backs. Read Medieval history. Remember, too, that even in England in Shakespeare's time, practicing the Jewish faith was outlawed.Yes, you're right about Antonio. It's so clearly evident in my mind as to be beyond dispute. And I'd suggest as well that the unrequited passionate (NOT Platonic!) love for another man occurs in other plays as well as in the sonnets.
Posted by Queen MAB on April 01, 1997 at 13:14:27
In Reply to "Response to person who's not sure if Antonio's gay!" posted by Katie Matsuba on March 16, 1997 at 20:37:21
Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries & Replies From Everyone Else 3.15.97: Top | Help