The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice is one of the most famous plays by William Shakespeare, written at an uncertain date between 1594 and 1597. It was entered in the Stationers' Register, the method at that time of obtaining copyright for a new play, by James Roberts on July 22, 1598. It was first printed in 1600 and again in a pirated edition in 1619. The play was mentioned by Francis Meres in 1598, so it must have been familiar on the stage by that date. Critics also debate over the resemblance of Shakespeare's play to Christopher Marlowe's "The Jew of Malta."

Pederasty

Many observers have interpreted the relationship between Antonio and Bassanio to be paederastic. Contemporary historians said that the practice experienced a revival in the city states during the Italian Renaissance as ancient Greek documents idealizing such relationships were translated and available to commoners for the first time in nearly one thousand years.

Related Topics:
Paederastic - Italian Renaissance

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Antonio's unexplained depression?"I know not why I am so sad"?and utter devotion to Bassanio has led some throughout the centuries to say that he is deeply in love with Bassanio and is depressed because Bassanio is coming to an age where he will marry a woman. Bassanio too has been subject to this interpretation, especially pertaining to Act IV Scene I, when Antonio says: "Commend me to your honorable wife:/Tell her the process of Antonio's end,/Say how I lov'd you, speak me fair in death;/And, when the tale is told, bid her be judge/Whether Bassanio had not once a love." Bassanio replies: "But life itself, my wife, and all the world/Are not with me esteemed above thy life;/I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all/Here to this devil, to deliver you."

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W.H. Auden, in the essay "Brothers & Others" (published in The Dyer's Hand) describes Antonio as "a man whose emotional life, though his conduct may be chaste, is concentrated upon a member of his own sex." Antonio's feelings for Bassanio are likened to a couplet from Shakespeare's Sonnets: "But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,/Mine be thy love, and my love's use their treasure." Antonio, says Auden, embodies the words on Portia's leaden casket: "Who chooseth me, must give and hazard all he hath." Antonio has taken this potentially fatal turn because he despairs, not only over the loss of Bassanio in marriage, but also because Bassanio cannot requite what Antonio feels for him. Antonio's frustrated devotion is a form of idolatry: the right to live is yielded for the sake of the loved one. There is one other such idolator in the play: Shylock himself. "Shylock, however unintentionally, did, in fact, hazard all for the sake of destroying the enemy he hated; and Antonio, however unthinkingly he signed the bond, hazarded all to secure the happiness of the man he loved." Both Antonio and Shylock, agreeing to put Antonio's life at a forfeit, stand outside the normal bounds of society. There was, states Auden, a traditional "association of sodomy with usury" with which Shakespeare was likely familiar. (Auden sees the theme of usury in the play as a comment on human relations in a mercantile society.)

Related Topics:
W.H. Auden - Usury

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Further adding fuel to controversy is Shakespeare?s own disputed sexuality in the wake of the discovery that the vast majority of his love sonnets were address to a beautiful young man. The Jew of Malta by Christopher Marlowe, a play that heavily influenced the development of The Merchant of Venice also adds to the debate since Shakespeare regarded him as a role model and the fact that Marlowe was a pederast himself who wrote poetry on the beauty of boys and in Hero and Leander directly refers to anal sex.

Related Topics:
The Jew of Malta - Christopher Marlowe

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