Le Marchand de Venise (bilingue) (1596)

This abridged audio version of Shakespeare's famous play will be of use chiefly to those quite familiar with the original. Others will have to read the play along with listening to this recording, in order to tell the characters apart. Even that approach will have its limits, given how abridged this version is. ( )

Aunque tiene elementos claramente trasnochados como mujeres disfrazadas de hombres y ni sus maridos las distingen, tambien tiene elementos muy interesantes.
En particular hay varias historias contadas en paralelo. Una historia de odio, una de amistad, una de amor (o varias), otra de libertad, de relaciones fraternales.

Las grandes preguntas de la vida, en formato comedia sin aparentes ambiciones. Este Shakespeare tenia algo especial.

Por cierto, mucha gente se queja de sus parrafos anti-judios. Si, la historia de odio pone a un judio como el malo y lo caracteriza como envidioso y tacaño. Si esto hiere su sensibilidad, no lea este libro. ( )

Loved it!! I had so much fun acting this out!! ( )

49. The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
Originally performed: ~1597
format: 207-page Signet Classic paperback, acquired in May
read: Aug 25 – Sep 30, 7 hr 47 min, 2.4 min/page
rating: 4
locations: Venice & Belmont
about the author April 23, 1564 – April 23, 1616

Editor: [[Kenneth Myrick]] 1965
Other contributors: [[Sylvan Barnett]] - series editor and author of an essay on the stage and screen history, 1998, [[Nicholas Rowe]] -from ‘The Works of Mr. William Shakespeare’, 1709?, [[William Hazlitt]] - from ‘Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays’, 1818, Anonymous from The Saturday Review, 8 Nov, 1879 - 'Henry Irving’s Shylock, [[Elmer Edgar Stoll]] - from ‘Shylock’, 1911, [[Linda Bamber]] - The Avoidance of Choice: A Woman’s Privilege, 1982, [[Alexander Leggatt]] - The Fourth and Fifth Acts, 1974, [[Robert Smallwood]] - The End of The Merchant of Venice: Four Versions, 1996

Shakespeare's infamous nuanced but still disturbing antisemitism. This is actually a terrific play that quickly generates stage drama has a really powerful scene in the first act where the targeted Jew, Shylock, and the main good guy, a notably kind and sad hero, Antonio, tell each other their hatreds and make their deal within this context of mutual hatred.

SHYLOCK

...

What should I say to you? Should I not say
'Hath a dog money? is it possible
A cur can lend three thousand ducats?' Or
Shall I bend low and in a bondman's key,
With bated breath and whispering humbleness, Say this;
'Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last;
You spurn'd me such a day; another time
You call'd me dog; and for these courtesies
I'll lend you thus much moneys'?

ANTONIO

I am as like to call thee so again,
To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too.
If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not
As to thy friends; for when did friendship take
A breed for barren metal of his friend?
But lend it rather to thine enemy,
Who, if he break, thou mayst with better face
Exact the penalty.

Shylock is a problem as he is a caricature of the bad Jews of Renaissance Europe, one who is fully obsessed about money and has limited other deep feelings or concerns. But what is most disturbing from modern perspectives is that the play celebrates the tormenting of this Jew, and how that deep dislike provides a kind of common bond for all the other characters. It's Venice society against Shylock. There is room for performances to take this different ways. The text does play at undermining Christian practices and manages to actually undermine every character. The quote above is kind Antonio admitting he spits on Jews. And Portia, the super clever heroine and savior, is exposed for her many commonplace biases.

I'm happy to have read this and see how the plot actually plays out and what makes this play important. And I came away with lot. Shylock‘s no nonsense directness holds a natural dignity no matter his dark purpose. And Portia is compromised no matter how clever she is or who she saved. A lot depends on actor interpretation and, if we believe the commentary in the after essays, the performance of these two characters seems to make or break the play. Modern audiences want nuance, whereas historically these characters might be exaggerated one way or another, successfully.

I don't think I can really recommend on Shakespeare, but you have to be open to what this play is to be able to appreciate it. If you're oversensitive to the antisemitism, that might ruin the play. Of course, it would also be justified.

2020
http://www.librarything.com/topic/322920#7279945 ( )

“To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses,
mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what's his reason?
I am a Jew.
Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,dimensions, senses, affections, passions?
Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is?
If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge?
If we are like you in the rest, we will
resemble you in that.
If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge.
If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example?
Why, revenge.
The villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I
will better the instruction.”

So I don't know what to really say except I did not care for this play at all until we get to the clever solution over what to do about Shylock and Antonio's deal. Up until then I really felt like there was a lot of moving parts going on that made little to no sense and we had everyone acting as if being a Jew was the worst thing in the world. Can I understand why Shylock was frustrated and angry towards the character of Antonio? Yes. Did I think he should have been so ready to end his life in order for him to finally get back at the man who had been tormenting him for so long? No.

So this whole play all starts because a man named Bassanio needs money to court Portia who lives away from Venice. His friend Antonio agrees, but can't loan the money to Bassanio and instead tells him to get it from "The Jew" who is Shylock in Venice. Antonio and Shylock have a mutual loathing of each other and Antonio often goes and pays the loans off of people who have taken out loans with Shylock who are unable to pay him back. Also Antonio has been calling out Shylock and other Jews in Venice for usury. Shylock agrees to a loan but wants the stipulation added that if Bassanio cannot pay him back, that he is then entitled to a pound of Antonio's flesh. Yeah these guys, all are super crazy. Who agrees to a loan like that?

There is a side plot of Portia being force to go through a game of sorts in order for her to find a husband I found boring as anything. Though I did laugh at her description of her would be suitors.

So the characters in this play are either great, okay, or just plain suck. I thought Antonio was self righteous as anything and also pretty dumb in thinking that him giving up a pound of flesh would be a good business decision.

Bassanio decides he needs wealth to court Portia, when we already know that you have to play the game in order to win her, so he wouldn't be able to court her really. I am guessing this was just added as a reason for the loan to happen. Either way when you read more of the play you start to realize that it was totally unnecessary for him to do this.

Shylock I did feel for because he feels maligned and attacked by many in Venice who will take his money but still treat him as a pariah and don't even say his name. He is called "The Jew" by everyone. Having his daughter run off with a friend of Bassanio and Antonio's and stole his money and some of his possessions. Instead of anyone feeling for the guy, you have more criticism heaped upon his head. I did love his speech about being a Jew and not being really that different from Christians.

I did love Portia's character since she was the one who ultimately solved how to keep Antonio from dying in order to repay his debt to Shylock. Her speech to Shylock about mercy is ultimately ignored by him. However, I liked that she tried to get him to refuse the debt in order that he would not lose everything.

We have some secondary characters that I am still trying to work out why they were included in the story. Launcelot Gobbo I think was supposed to be comic relief, but I thought he was just horrible for the way he treated and spoke of his father and his former employer Shylock.

Jessica who stole her father's money and possessions and seemingly rejects him and converts to Christianity is often referred to as being so good and pretty that one would think she was a Christian (ugh) and who from what I can see never apologizes to her father for what she has done.

The writing was funny at parts as are much of Shakespeare's plays. Some double meaning here and there. I did think the play suffered when switching from Venice to Portia and her suitors. I just didn't care at all and it was a foregone conclusion that Bassanio would be the one to correctly solve the game.

The ending I supposed was to be a triumph, but to have Shylock lost almost everything and be forcibly converted left a bad taste in my mouth. And to go from that to humor with Portia (disguised) getting a ring that her now husband promised to never take off in order to make him plead and feel sorry for doing so was supposed to be hilarious I think, but just threw off the whole play. If the play had ended at the trial with Portia later revealing herself to her husband later on I think that would have worked better. ( )