The Merchant of Venice
Shakespeare
5 Acts
Summary: Direct from Wikipedia.com (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchant_of_Venice)
The Merchant of Venice is a play by William Shakespeare in which a merchant in 16th-century Venice must default on a large loan provided by an abused Jewish moneylender. It is believed to have been written between 1596 and 1599.
My Opinion:
This was a very good play by Shakespeare. I can see a few things from many of his other plays reflected in this one (Romeo & Juliet, Othello, etc.). Also, I can see where many common tropes and story-line ideas came from. Parts of the story was predictable to me, but others were unexpected. I did not think Portia would have made that well of a lawyer. I wonder how she learned that much Venetian Law. I am glad Shakespeare put in that much women power in there. At first, I thought Portia was just a silly little girl. Instead she was an intelligent mastermind. I am very glad Antonio was okay. He was too nice for him to have almost died by Shylock's hands.
Although I enjoyed the play as a whole, I am not fond of role Jews took on in the play. I understand why as in this time period Christians were seen as the holy everything and all others were impure evil. However, it is truly saf to read something like that. History always had someone(s) being called evil and the devil. Sure one person might be like that (Shylock really was the devil), but a whole ethnicity is not evil. That is just a sad misconception.
