THE MERCHANT OF VENICE SOURCE OF THE PLOT-The Merchant of fundamental. In order to romanticize the love story Venice illustrates one of Shakespeare's most endear- of Portia and Bassanio, the mode of the lady's wooing traits: his habit of weaving lovely pictures of ing is completely altered. In the novel this episode young and innocent romance out of the shoddy Ital- is both stupid and coarse. Belmonte is here a seaian tales of lust and trickery with which the sixteenth port several days' sail from Venice, the mistress of century was glutted. The ultimate source of the which, a widow, has made the law that whoever preplay is a prose novelette written during the age of sents himself must stake his ship and cargo against Chaucer by Giovanni Fiorentino and included in a his ability to win her hand by the apparently simple collection of tales modeled after the fashion of Boc- ordeal of remaining awake through one evening in caccio's Decameron. The manuscript of Fiorentino's her company. Twice Giannetto (Bassanio) makes book, which he called Il Pecorone (The Blockhead), the attempt with a fine ship provided by his godfather is dated 1378, but it is not known to have been printed Ansaldo (Antonio); each time, drinking a glass of in the Italian original before 1565 or in English trans- drugged wine urged upon him by the lady as he enlation before 1755. It is still unsettled whether ters her chamber, he falls immediately into a stupor Shakespeare was able to read the Italian for himself, and is sent back the next morning penniless. When whether he learned the story from some earlier Eng- preparation is made for the third trial, the impoverlish play on the same subject, or made its acquaint- ished Ansaldo is obliged to resort to the Jew for the ance by another of the many avenues through which additional ten thousand ducats required. Again the sixteenth-century Englishmen were constantly brought stupid Giannetto is about to drink the sleeping into contact with the fruits of Italian culture. draught, when a warning whispered by a kindly attendant enables him to gain the wager and achieve his hardly desirable lady. Fiorentino's tale, which occupies about twenty pages of prose, incorporates three essential elements of Shakespeare's play: (a) The winning of the fair lady of Belmont (Belmonte in Il Pecorone) by Bassanio (Giannetto); (b) The bond by which the friendly merchant of Venice (Ansaldo) pledges a pound of his flesh to a Jew in order to secure the ten thousand ducats required to fit out the wooer; (c) The device whereby the lady of Belmont, disguised as a judge, saves the merchant by quibbles on the precise weight of a pound and the Jew's failure to provide for blood as well as flesh. Even the pretended judge's demand of her husband's ring and her subsequent twitting of him for losing it are in the Italian. Yet one reads Fiorentino's story without feeling any of the qualities which make the play delightful. Instead of this Shakespeare's play substitutes the story of the three caskets, which, though known, like the pound of flesh story,. in many different guises, appears to have reached the poet through the medium of the medieval collection of moral tales called Gesta Romanorum. DRAMATIC INFLUENCES-Shakespeare's most vital literary impressions were often received, not from books, but from the acted plays of his contemporaries; and there is reason to believe that The Merchant of Venice might never have been written, had not some earlier effort to dramatize the story of the Lady of Belmont and the Jew put vividly before the poet's mind the latent possibilities of the theme. Stephen Gosson, who in 1579 published a pamphlet called It is not simply that the story is bare and harsh The School of Abuse, interrupts his general attack where the play has a divine richness and softness of upon the English stage to mention as a play worthy finish; nor is it because Portia and Shylock are left of commendation "The Jew," recently performed at nameless in Fiorentino, Nerissa only barely sug- the Bull Inn, "representing the greediness of worldly gested, and Gratiano, Lorenzo, Jessica, and the Clown choosers and bloody minds of usurers." On this altogether lacking. The difference is much more phrase, which comprises all that is known of the play in question, critics of The Merchant of Venice have Bar. Hast thou 't? There's more, and more, and more. My gold, my fortune, my felicity! eagerly seized. "The greediness of worldly choosers," Abig. Here. (Throws down bags.) Hast thou 't? they say, must allude to the unsuccessful choosers in the casket scenes, whereas "the bloody minds of usurers" proves the presence of Shylock's prototype. It is interesting to imagine that the two separate strands of Shakespeare's plot may thus have been united in a single play at least fifteen years before Shakespeare took up the subject; but the reasoning is far from conclusive. Of one thing we may feel sure from the spirit of Gosson's pamphlet: his Puritanical soul would never have selected for special praise any play in which there was an approach to the romantic witchery of the love-scenes in The Merchant of Venice. Nor is it easy to conceive how the rude drama of 1579 can have treated the novel of Fiorentino in a manner tolerable to a professed moralist. It required the infinite delicacy of Shakespeare to make the story beautiful; to make it an instrument of the didactic edifica tion which Gosson recognized in his Jew would indeed have been a startling achievement. DATE-On August 25, 1594, while Shakespeare's company and their usual rivals, the Lord Admiral's men, were apparently acting in conjunction, the diary of Philip Henslowe, manager of the latter company, records the first production of "the Venesyon (Venetian) comodey." This has been taken by many critics as signalizing the appearance of The Merchant of Venice, perhaps in a rudimentary form. Sir Sidney Lee's important essay on "The Original Shylock" (Gentleman's Magazine, Feb., 1880) shows, furthermore, that interest in Jews was very acute at this time because of the popular excitement over the hanging of Elizabeth's Jewish physician, Roderigo Lopez, in May, 1594. A more significant connection, not relating to plot alone, links The Merchant of Venice with Christopher Marlowe's tremendously popular play, The Jew of Malta. Written about 1590, Marlowe's tragedy, the earliest attempt to present on the English stage the deeper side of Jewish character, was still a strong faThere is nothing which positively forbids the view vorite with the London public when Shakespeare's that Henslowe's allusion refers to an early form of play was composed. The part of Barabas the Jew, the Shylock-Portia story, prepared by Shakespeare arch-enemy of the Christians, was one of the greatest with the idea of capitalizing the anti-Jewish feeling rôles of Edward Alleyn, leader of the Lord Admiral's of the day; but it is decidedly improbable that the Players; and it was very likely the ambition of providing Burbage, the principal tragedian of his own company with a part similar in character to that their rivals had so profitably exploited that first stimulated Shakespeare to write his play. The influence of Barabas on Shylock is quite indisputable; and Marlowe's Abigail, the Jew's daughter, secretly in love with a Christian gallant, is no less certainly the prototype of Jessica. The comparison of the two girls is interesting: Jessica is the more romantic, Abigail the more truly Jewish. The scene in which the eloping Jessica throws the casket of her father's jewels to her lover below is an echo of the powerful scene in which Abigail throws down to Barabas the gold she has recovered from a Christian Nunnery:— "Enter Abigail above. Abig. Who's that? Barabas (below). Peace, Abigail; 'tis I. play as we have it dates from so early a period of the dramatist's career. The first clear allusions to The Merchant of Venice belong to the year 1598. Francis Meres names the play as the last in order of the six comedies which he ascribes to Shakespeare in his Palladis Tamia (published 1598). On July 22 of the same year, James Roberts paid sixpence to the Wardens of the Stationers' Company for license to print a book of the Merchant of Venice, or otherwise called The Jew of Venice." It is likely that at this time the play was still comparatively new. TEXT-The edition of the play which Roberts contemplated in 1598 was never published. To the license granted him the Wardens had indeed added the stipulation: "Provided that it be not printed by the said James Roberts or any other whatsoever, without license first had from the Right Honorable the Lord Chamberlain." The Lord Chamberlain was the patron of Shakespeare's company, and Roberts may have acted as the company's agent to forestall unauthorized pub lication, likely to interfere with the popularity of the conspicuousness to the part of Bassanio, who was play on the stage. Two years later, October 28, 1600, played by the famous actor Betterton. Lorenzo's Thomas Heyes, father-in-law of Roberts, secured a great speech about music (V. i. 70-88), for example, new license "by consent of Master Roberts." This time is removed to the close of Act II, where it is dethe Wardens recorded no objection, and the play ac- claimed by Bassanio and operatically illustrated by an cordingly appeared in 1600 with the names of Heyes inserted “masque of Peleus and Thetis." In the judgas publisher and J. R. (i. e., Roberts) as printer. A ment scene Bassanio melodramatically offers his own number of typographical corrections were introduced body in place of Antonio's forfeited pound of flesh, while this quarto was being printed, with the result and when Shylock declines the exchange, draws his that different copies vary considerably from one an- sword wildly in defense of his friend. The greatest other. (See note on IV. i. 73, 74.) The Heyes quarto of Lansdowne's degradations consists in debasing the and the 1623 Shakespeare Folio, which follows it with- figure of Shylock to one of comedy pure and simple. out many important corrections, are the only trust-The Jew is presented as a cheap and ridiculous charworthy authorities for The Merchant of Venice. Un-latan. fortunately, the text of this play, which especially For the first forty years of the eighteenth century, abounds in puzzling passages, was exposed to addi- this was the only form in which The Merchant of Ventional sophistication for nearly three hundred years ice was played. In 1741, precisely a century and a by the fact that a dishonest publisher, Thomas Pavier, quarter after Shakespeare's death, an Irish actor, circulated in 1619 a second quarto edition, with the Macklin, succeeded in inducing the Drury Lane comfraudulent date 1600. Pavier prudently withheld the pany to give the unpolluted play. "Even the manpublisher's name (his own), but he indicated J. ager himself," we are told, "expostulated with him Roberts (falsely) as printer, and this so-called concerning the propriety of his persevering in his in"Roberts quarto" was almost universally accepted, tention of having The Merchant of Venice represented until Dr. W. W. Greg's great discovery in 1907, as the in opposition to the judgment of so eminent a peroriginal edition. It is in fact of extremely little sonage as Lord Lansdowne." Macklin, however, inindependent value. Two later quartos, published in sisted, and his portrayal of Shylock as the incarnation 1637 and 1652 respectively, have no significance. of grim and terrible ferocity was one of the most STAGE HISTORY-Concerning Burbage's acting spectacular triumphs in stage history. The comic of Shylock we have unfortunately no information be- Shylock was forever discarded, and a German visitor yond the probable fact, long continued as a matter of to England in the latter half of the eighteenth century stage practice, that he wore a red wig-a heritage found Macklin's Shylock and Garrick's Hamlet doubtless from the red-haired Judas of the mystery classed together as the two greatest achievements of plays. On Shrove Sunday, 1605, the play was preBritish acting. sented before James I, with such success that it was repeated two days later by special command of the king. From this time, however, there is no evidence that the seventeenth century knew The Merchant of Venice. Once again, three-quarters of a century later, the triumphant vindication of a great new conception of Shylock added a thrilling chapter to the annals of the old Drury Lane Theater in London. On January 26, 1814, Edmund Kean's marvelous interpretation of the In 1701, an outrageously mutilated and perverted Jew as "the depositary of the vengeance of his race" revision of the play was prepared by George Gran- lifted the actor instantaneously out of poverty and ville, Lord Lansdowne, the friend of Addison and obscurity and saved the theater from bankruptcy. Pope. Lansdowne's apologetic Advertisement to the Since Macklin's time The Merchant of Venice had Reader of his version illustrates the attitude of the never ceased to be popular; since the time of Kean time: "The Foundation of the following Comedy be- the play has been almost constantly on the stage. ing liable to some objections, it may be wonder'd that Even Hamlet and Macbeth are hardly given oftener any one should make Choice of it to bestow so much to-day. Probably no actor, however, in the century labour upon; But the judicious Reader will observe that has elapsed, has improved upon Kean's treatment so many Manly and Moral Graces in the Characters of Shylock. Macready in the earlier half of the and Sentiments that he may excuse the Story for the last century and Sir Henry Irving in the latter sake of the Ornamental parts." These "ornamental half went a step farther, and made the Jew frankly parts" consist largely of additions in the most garish an object of the audience's sympathy and affection; taste of Lansdowne's age, calculated to give further but there seems no doubt that in doing this they ex ceeded Shakespeare's intention. Of the many Por- which Mr. David Warfield acted Shylock, beginning tias who from the time of Betterton's associate, Mrs. at the Lyceum Theatre, New York, in December, Bracegirdle, have divided with the Shylocks the chief | 1922. stage honors of the play, none has more enduringly CRITICAL OPINION—“The Merchant of Venconnected her personality with the part than Ellen | ice," Hallam wrote in 1837, "is generally esteemed the Terry. During the years 1879 and 1880 she acted Por- best of Shakespeare's comedies. . . . In the managetia to Irving's Shylock through two hundred and fifty ment of the plot, which is sufficiently complex without consecutive performances at the Lyceum Theatre. the slightest confusion or incoherence, I do not con"Your whole conception and acting of the character," ceive that it has been surpassed in the annals of any Dr. Furnivall wrote to her, "are so true to Shake- theatre." The human side of Shylock and the essenspeare's lines that one longs he could be here to see tial truth with which Shakespeare, in spite of the you. A lady gracious and graceful, handsome, witty, prejudice and ignorance of his age, vindicates the loving and wise, you are his Portia to the life." The deeper side of Jewish character have been well set earliest of the countless American performances of forth by many writers, but by none better than by The Merchant of Venice, that given at Williamsburg, Hazlitt, who, inspired by Kean's acting of the part, Virginia, Sept. 5, 1752, has received romantic treat-wrote in 1817: "In proportion as Shylock has ceased ment in John Esten Cooke's novel, The Virginia Com-to be a popular bugbear baited with the rabble's edians. At present a season seldom passes, in England or in America, without a revival of this play. Notable among those of recent years are the performance at Stratford-upon-Avon in April, 1920, at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, and those given at intervals during a long series of years by the Sothern and Marlowe company. In May, 1920, Mr. Walter Hampden put on The Merchant of Venice in New York with himself as Shylock, repeating it in 1921. Doubtless the most impressive and hotly discussed interpretation of the present century was that in curse,' he becomes a half-favorite with the philosophì- B. |