Shakespeare: Anti-Semitic? The Image Of The Jew In “The Merchant Of Venice”

Abstract

Being in touch with a theoretical frameworks about anti-semitism, subcultures, Judaism, literary theory and English literature, in other words, theories who involve the culture and image of Judaism in literature, special, the British literature, we foment an analysis about the anti-semitism in the play The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare. To help his friend Bassânio to conquer his beloved Portia, the merchant Antonio agrees with making a loan with the Jewish speculator Shylock offering as guarantee a pound of his proper flesh. It is in this plot, somehow, that Willian Shakespeare (1564- 1616) constructs certain types of stereotypes and prejudice image concerning the Jew and their beliefs. Written circa 1600, time that the Jews had been absent in England, the play was being for times classified as a tragicomedy which gives to the reader historical views about the English thought of that time, mainly to what would be a Jew description in the lines dedicated to Shylock speech. Referring to The Merchant of Venice, Harold Bloom (2000, p. 222) said: “ One would have to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to recognize that Shakespeare’s grand, equivocal comedy The Merchant of Venice is nevertheless a profoundly anti-Semitic work.” Thus, our research fulfill this proposal, the method was historical, while the pattern was descriptive/analytical.