ABSTRACT
The Merchant of Venice probably shares with Hamlet the distinction of being the most popular of all Shakespeare’s plays. The Merchant of Venice happens to be Shakespeare’s; but Shakespeare has not much to do with its popularity. True, The Merchant of Venice almost is Shakespeare in the popular mind. But this popular Shakespeare, who wrote The Merchant of Venice and Richard III, is scarcely a person. Shylock is deliberately made unsympathetic when it is required to cover Jessica. He is made sympathetic when Shakespeare feels the need, or welcomes the opportunity of making a truly dramatic contrast between Shylock and Antonio. Shakespeare misses more than half the point when he makes his intended victims, as a class and by habit, just as heartless as Shylock without any of Shylock’s passionate excuse. Antonio would remain a presence in the responsive imagination, a character whose nature was not wholly expressed in the acts required of him.
