The Merchant of Venice

Originally published in 1991. Essays here are arranged chronologically within sections: 'The Play as Text', 'Shylock' and 'The Play in the Theatre.' Collecting previously published important commentaries and scholarly articles, this volume in the Shakespearean Criticism set looks at one of the Bard's most disturbing plays. These historical critical pieces give witness to the changing attitudes to the play and the characters and provide readers with a wide range of material relating both to performances and to textual readings.

Thomas Wheeler

General Editor's Preface, Joseph G. Price; Introduction, Thomas Wheeler; Part 1 The Play as Text; Chapter 1 The Merchant of Venice, Harley Granville-Barker; Chapter 2 Shakespeare's Method: The Merchant of Venice, John Middleton Murry; Chapter 3 Brothers & Others, W.H. Auden; Chapter 4 The Letter of the Law (III. iii-v; IV. i), A.D. Moody; Chapter 5 Meaning and Shakespeare, Norman Rabkin; Chapter 6 Style and Assessment, A.R. Humphreys; Chapter 7 'The Merchant of Venice' and the Pattern of Romantic Comedy, R.F. Hill; Chapter 8 Portia, the Law, and the TriPart ite Structure of The Merchant of Venice, Alice N. Benston; Chapter 9 The Counterfeit Order of The Merchant of Venice, Leonard Tennenhouse; Chapter 10 Beginning in the Middle, John Lyon; Part 2 Shylock; Chapter 11 The Merchant of Venice, William Hazlitt; Chapter 12 Shylock, E.E. Stoll; Chapter 13 The Realization of Shylock: A Theatrical Criticism, John Russell Brown; Chapter 14 The Problem of Shylock, Bill Overton; Part 3 The Play in the Theater; Chapter 15 Strumpet Wind-The National Theatre's Merchant of Venice, Patrick J. Sullivan; Chapter 16 Portia in The Merchant of Venice, Sinead Cusack; Chapter 17 Lorenzo's "Infidel": The Staging of Difference in The Merchant of Venice, Paul Gaudet;