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William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was born to John Shakespeare
and mother Mary Arden some time in late April 1564 in
Stratford-upon-Avon. There is no record of his birth, but
his baptism was recorded by the church, thus his birthday is
assumed to be the 23 of April. His father was a prominent
and prosperous alderman in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon,
and was later granted a coat of arms by the College of
Heralds. All that is known of Shakespeare's youth is that he
presumably attended the Stratford Grammar School, and did
not proceed to Oxford or Cambridge. The next record we have
of him is his marriage to Anne Hathaway in 1582. The next
year she bore a daughter for him, Susanna, followed by the
twins Judith and Hamnet two
years later.
Written sometime between 1596 and 1598, The Merchant of
Venice is classified as both an early Shakespearean comedy
(more specifically, as a "Christian comedy") and as one of
the Bard's problem plays; it is a work in which good
triumphs over evil, but serious themes are examined and some
issues remain unresolved.
Seven years later Shakespeare was recognized as an actor,
poet, and playwright, when a rival playwright, Robert
Greene, referred to him as "an upstart crow" in "A
Groatsworth of Wit." A few years later he joined up with one
of the most successful acting troupes in London: "The Lord
Chamberlain's Men." When, in 1599, the troupe lost the lease
of the
theatre where they performed (appropriately called
"The Theatre"), they were wealthy enough to build their own
theatre across the Thames, south of London, which they
called "The Globe." The new theatre opened in July of 1599,
built from the timbers of "The Theatre", with the motto
"Totus mundus agit histrionem" (A whole world of players).
When James I came to the throne (1603) the troupe was
designated by the new
king as the "King's Men" (or "King's
Company"). The Letters Patent of the company specifically
charged Shakespeare and eight others "freely to use and
exercise the art and faculty of playing Comedies, Tragedies,
Histories, Interludes, Morals, Pastorals, stage plays ... as
well for recreation of our loving subjects as for our solace
and pleasure."
The
play In Merchant, Shakespeare wove together two ancient folk
tales, one involving a vengeful, greedy creditor trying to
exact a pound of flesh, the other involving a marriage
suitor's choice among three chests and thereby winning his
(or her) mate. Shakespeare's treatment of the first standard
plot scheme centers around the villain of Merchant, the
Jewish moneylender Shylock, who seeks a literal pound of
flesh from his Christian opposite, the generous, faithful
Antonio. Shakespeare's version of the chest-choosing device
revolves around the play's Christian heroine Portia, who
steers her lover Bassanio toward the correct humble casket
and then successfully defends his bosom friend Antonio from
Shylock's horrid legal suit.
In the modern, post-Holocaust readings of Merchant, the
problem of anti-Semitism in the play has loomed large. A
close reading of the text must acknowledge that Shylock is a
stereotypical caricature of a cruel, money-obsessed medieval
Jew, but it also suggests that Shakespeare's intentions in
Merchant were not primarily anti-Semitic. Indeed, the
dominant thematic complex in The Merchant of Venice is much
more universal than specific religious or racial hatred; it
spins around the polarity between the surface attractiveness
of gold and the Christian qualities of mercy and compassion
that lie beneath the flesh.
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