The Connell Guide To Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice is now the most contentious of Shakespeare's plays. Its only rival in this respect is Othello, and this is because both plays deal with dangerous issues of race. In Othello Iago uses the protagonist's colour both to goad his victim's jealousy and to excite the animosity of Venetians against this visible outsider; in The Merchant Shylock's Jewishness renders him, from the beginning, the object of general opprobrium in Christian Venice. But whereas the Moor is treated as a generally sympathetic character, the Jew appears to be cast in an entirely negative light. Or so, at least, many critics believe. In this book, however, one of the best respected critics of Shakespeare, Michael Neill, takes issue with this simplistic view, providing a fresh reading of the play and arguing that in it, as always, Shakespeare refuses to allow us the comfort of any single "view of the world".