Quote:
Originally Posted by Roger Slater
Glenn, The Merchant of Venice is a comedy. No one dies and there's a wedding at the end. But I agree it's not a very light comedy.
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. . .unless you consider Shylock as a tragic hero. The main plot line, set in Venice, involving the bargain with the pound of flesh and culminating in the courtroom scene in Act 4 is tragic. Shylock’s forced conversion, from the point-of-view of a devout Jew and his community, could be seen as a kind of death. Many tragedies don’t end with the death of the tragic hero, but rather with his or her mutilation or enslavement—
Oedipus Rex and
The Trojan Women, for example.
The other plot line, set in Belmont involving the gold, silver, and lead caskets and the triple romance of Portia/Bassanio, Jessica/Lorenzo, and Gratiano/Nerissa is comic, but it is resolved in Act 3, even though the weddings are postponed until Act 5.
Since WWII and the Holocaust, most productions of the play emphasize the tragic character of Shylock. (Although in Shakespeare’s day, Shylock would most likely have been played by a clown like Will Kemp.). The tradition of playing Shylock sympathetically as a tragic character apparently began in the early 19th century with Edmund Kean’s portrayal of this character. Here is an article on this trend:
https://therogersrevue.com/stc-the-merchant-of-venice/