>write story >make the jew character comically greedy and evil, his greed only exceeded by his hatred of gentiles>make his daughter run away from him and marry a Christian >have the normal people outjew him, take his shit, and then force him to convert to Christianity >label it as a comedyermmm...
>>24768617Sounds hilarious though
Wait till you see how Marlowe wrote his Jew.Also:
>>24768617>his hatred of gentilesPretty sure he only hated Antonio.
>>24768617The victorians were not anti-semitic, forcing him to convert was a way of destroying the village to save the village. As in they wanted him in the brotherhood of Christ. Plenty of real Shakespeare villains die violently.
>>24769331He followed the Jewish practice of loaning to gentiles at an increased rate of interest.
>>24769511So? What kind of moron loans money for free?
>>24768617Lmao wouldn’t it be funny if the head of the ADL had a conventionally hot daughter and I just banged her with my BWC? Lmao
>>24768617We studied three Shakespeare plays in high school and looking back on it now, knowing a lot more about his work, I find it very bizarre that one of those three was Merchant of Venice. What was my English teacher trying to tell us?
>>24769665that even the greatest men can be flawed by antisemitism
I found Shylock to be the most sympathetic of Shakespeare’s villains by far desu. I am sure Shakespeare did too since the major crime leveled at Shylock throughout the play was usury which Shakespeare became very wealthy from himself
>>24769803>We can pay you back 12x what we owe you>NO I WANT HIS FLESH>sympathetic
>>24768617It's so over the top some think it was a satire of anti-jewish sentiment. It's improbable, but not impossible, imo. I can see the possibility pretty clearly.Also comedy used to mean something else back when he was writing. Comedies weren't necessarily funny, just had happy endings.If it was a joke, it was only for Shakespeare to enjoy at the expense of the rest of society.>>24769665It's one of his more famous plays. I assume the other two were Hamlet and Macbeth? Either that or maybe substitute one with the Tempest.
>>24769833>over the topnah. pretty true to reality. if anything i felt shylock's portrayal to be quite muted, especially for the period.
>>24768617Based
>>24769837It's not just Shylock's characterization. It's everyone, everything. The world of the play is constructed so that a thin sliver of ambiguity remains. It does not have to be intentional, necessarily.
>>24769833>It's one of his more famous plays. I assume the other two were Hamlet and Macbeth? Either that or maybe substitute one with the Tempest.The other two were Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth. Who the fug chooses Memechant of Venice over Hamlet?
>>24769871you've levered in an interpretation which is favorable to the jews. you realize that should you be jewish yourself (call it a hunch), that it only confirms the stereotype, and further, shows absolutely no embellishment existed in this play
>>24768617There are two problems with your interpretation of Shakespeare’s work: 1. You assume modern comedy and Shakespeare’s are the same, which is not the case. Comedy as defined back then relates to the story’s happy ending, whereas modern comedy is known for being humorous. The fact that Shylock loses badly is not played off as a punchline--- irony if you will--- but never something “comical” in a modern sense. Besides, even if it were, that wouldn’t necessarily make it the reason the play is a comedy. 2. Shylock’s actions and motives are, actually, understandable. In Act 1 Scene 3 he recalls how Antonio has repeatedly scorned him because he’s Jewish, later again in his monologue in Act 3 Scene 1. I found his evil-ness quite sympathetic and was even rooting for him. He’s far from “comically evil” as you put it. >>24769833This is a justifiable interpretation, especially when taking into account his understandable motives.
>>24769892How did I forget about Romeo and Juliet. God damn it.>>24769918Have you even read the play? Or do you just feel the need to defend it because you have heard it portrays Jews unfavourably and is very anti-semitic? Shylock is evil. It's just that our ostensibly sympathetic characters are not truly any better, Portia is an admitted hypocrite, Lorenzo is a fortune hunter, Jessica pawns away her mother's ring for a monkey. The resolution is almost farsical: the 'trial' is held by women in disguise, Portia gives a long winded speech about mercy just before revenging herself upon Shylock, who is forced into ruin and a conversion that is by all accounts insincere, what follows is levity and fanfare. It is not hard to imagine a Shakespeare is mocking the story, the framing, the audience going along. He is not, most likely. But one can interpret it that way.As for your so very adroit and expert psychologizing, if I am Shylock, then you, my friend, are Portia. If I am dishonestly suggesting an interpetation that is favourable to the Jews, you (disguised as an impartial observer while being something else entirely) are offering one that poses the inverse view with just as much honesty.
>>24769837There were no Jews in England then and there wouldn’t be until Cromwell lifted the ban on them
>>24769811The pound of flesh was never about the money though it was about revenge on the guy for spitting on him and treating him like an animal for years while Shylock couldn’t do anything because if a Jew struck a Christian it would be death.
>>24770041Shakespeare made them all a mockery. He even did it with the acting roles by having Portia pretend to be a man while women's roles were being played by men. (A man pretending to be a woman pretending to be a man is definitely a spoof.)>>24769665>>24769833>>24769892I had to study The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest and another one I forgot in school.
>>24770069There weren't any Jews in England back then but there were opinions. >>24770031>>24770078It's literally in their lines. Shylock had a pretty decent motivation here.
>>24770041Of course I read it. The point is that it's not out of the scope of reality. Shylock is a jew without embellishment. It's that simple.
>>24769665We had to study one and it was Othello. I hate America.
>>24770522Othello! I completely forgot about that one.
>>24769833>Also comedy used to mean something else back when he was writing. Comedies weren't necessarily funny, just had happy endings.>>24770031>Comedy as defined back then relates to the story’s happy endingSauce? I have never heard this definition before.
>>24770794Aristotle
>>24770798Which work? He doesn't say that in the Poetics.
>>24768994This. Marlowe was a real hack.
>>24768617w.s. inherited all his plots, what matters in his plays is what is said. the original intention in creating the character was deflected and instead of a comic moneylender, he produced a figure of tragic significance.
>This thing that mocked and condemned this other thing thought to be politically incorrect to mock and condemn nowadays? It's actually a condemnation and mockery of those who condemned and mocked that thing. Who would've thought that this man who lived 400 years ago would have such contemporary opinions!
>>24770078its not justifiable to take a pound of someones flesh when multiple times the money you asked for is available instead
>>24770958Well he is thought to have had a jewish mistress while writing it. They‘re sneaky like that.
>>24770958the retcon is infinite and shameless
>Jacob Adler and others report that the tradition of playing Shylock sympathetically began in the first half of the 19th century with Edmund Kean>Previously the role had been played "by a comedian as a repulsive clown or, alternatively, as a monster of unrelieved evil".If it took 200 years for Shylock to be played sympathetically instead of as a villain it stands to reason that he was written as a villain and the fact you can present him in such a different way is just further evidence of Shakespeares greatness in creating living, breathing characters
>>24771080I thought he had a Black mistress? The whole “Dark Lady” of the sonnets
>>24771145no no no, he WAS his black mistress. shakes was a black trans male
>>24771145Venetian jewess (probably) Black and Dark in Shakespearean England refer most commonly to hair and eye complexion.
>>24771156>(probably)>first proposed by some rando 300 years after shakespeare died
>>24770794>I have never heard this definition before.Good old /lit/ the literature board that has never heard of Dante's Divine Comedy
>>24771289>Medieval Italian poem defines Ancient Greek comedyShut the fuck up
>>24770807That's because the part on comedy specifically is lost. Read commentary or works that mention the Poetics from his contemporaries.
>>24771074You don't understand real suffering
>>24771074He didn’t want the pound of flesh because he cared about the money, he wanted the pound of flesh because it was the only way he could legally take revenge for being humiliated and subjected to maltreatment. He never wanted the loan paid back.
>>24769665My 10th grade English teacher explicitly told the class that we weren't going to read the Merchant of Venice because it is antisemitic.
>>24773433there are english novelists from the mid 20th century that wrote about how it was known in school that shylock wasn't antisemetic but a tragic figure of sympathy. i guess it's different in america.
>>24772259>Aristotle defines comedy as happy ending>Where did he write this? In a work lost for two thousand years.You're full of shit.
>>24773450This was in Canada, but same thing I guess. That particular teacher was also the most comically over the top progressive liberal I've ever known. That classroom was also the first place I heard the "Shakespeare might've been a woman" theory.
>>24773464about that>same thingyeah same thing
>>24773472Is this the Welles quote projecting his own effeminacy?
>>24773479as far as a 6’2 womaniser can do that sort of thing, maybe
>>24773472I don't mean the teacher said Shakespeare was feminine, I mean literally a woman.
has this ever been refuted?
>>24773494i know what you mean, i’m saying she wasn’t just being stupid. it’s a lame NA conspiracy but it is still a talking point.
>>24773502>i know what you meanI don't think you do. In the context of a classroom, there's a big difference between analyzing Shakespeare's writing as feminine and claiming the historical person was a woman. This teacher was the sort of person who would've balked at the thought of writing being "feminine" because that would suggest there was such a thing as femininity. But I appreciate you just wanted to spill your folder of tranny screenshots, you're valid and I see you.
>>24773487Damn I actually thought the other person to allude to this notion had been Dali, which I‘d have had to concede somewhat. Not another really another effeminate (which his having been tall doesn‘t change.)
>>24773549was just trying to raise the tone of the conversation seeing as we’re on a literature board. but i understand you felt slighted by a teacher 10 years ago & i’m sorry that happened.
>>24773573no i wouldn’t send a dali quote. you’ve got to have some standards.
>>24773501Oriental cultures like that of the jews, arabs and indians often see a willingness towards compromise as an admission of weakness rather than an outstretched hand. If he was treated better he would have surely been twice as vicious, just like modern jews born after WW2 who never knew any sort of oppression but who nevertheless still act like they are known to. And anyway, jews weren't treated that way because they were different, they were simply treated with the exact same absence of empathy that their religions has taught them to treat goyim for countless generations, because it goes against human nature to treat others with more empathy than they treat you.
>>24774094there’s an idea that when people make sweeping generalisations like this, it’s always for the wrong reasons.
>>24774055On closer reading you have a point anon, I misunderstood something you said and I sperged over it.
>>24769665>What was my English teacher trying to tell us?Well what did he tell you?It's the context of how work is presented that is relevant.
>>24774102sounds like a stupid idea to ignore general truths
>>24770081but money itself would have been revenge. It was also about the disproportionate revenge desired.For example krav maga the israeli martial arts system, is the only one that advices to counter every slight attack with maximum escalation. You see the same with international relations of Israel.I interpreted the ending of Shylock being punished harshly to be considered merciful for its time (when it sounds draconian now). Because a death penalty wouldn't have been so strange. You also have to remind yourself that the forced conversion wasn't intended as punishment, but the reverse. As a way to save him. Because that's how it looks from a devoutly christian society's perspective.
>>24775023How devout of a Christian was Shaxpy anyway? He clearly believed in God, but apparently not heaven and hell. He also sinned greatly, got his wife pregnant before marrying her.
>>24775023My original argument is simply that that the course of events in the play and it's protagonists make the whole moral, happy conclusion sound more like a farce. It's squarely in 'Death of the Author' territory. And I have been very clear about that.
