Introduction – Part 1

Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice

In this twenty-seven part course, Professor John McRae (University of Nottingham) explores Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. In the first two lectures, we provide a broad introduction to the historical, political, intellectual, cultural and artistic context of late 16th-century England. In the twenty-five lectures after that, we go through the play scene-by-scene, providing close reading and detailed analysis, with commentary on character, plot, themes and motifs, language, symbolism, and more.

Note: We use the Arden edition of the play (Third Series, ed. John Drakakis). Students using a different version of the play may encounter slight differences in both the text and line numbers.

Introduction – Part 1

In this lecture, we begin our introduction to The Merchant of Venice, focusing in particular on: (i) some of the myths associated with the play; (ii) the figure of Shylock and the long history of anti-Jewish sentiment in European culture, politics and society; (iii) other Jewish characters on the early modern stage, most notably Barabas from Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta (1590); (iv) Shakespeare’s main source for the play – Giovanni Fiorentino’s Il Pecorone (1378-85) – and Shakespeare’s decision to change the setting from Florence to Venice; (v) racial diversity within the plays of Shakespeare, including the characters of Aaron the Moor (Titus Andronicus, 1588-93), The Prince of Morocco (The Merchant of Venice, 1596-8) and Othello (Othello, 1604); and (vi) some of the key preoccupations in the Merchant of Venice: money and gambling.