scholarly journals Teaching Jessica: race, religion, and gender in The Merchant of Venice

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 268-287
Author(s):  
Efraim Sicher
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Performance History ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Race And Religion

AbstractThe Jew’s “fair daughter” in Shakespeare’s playThe Merchant of Veniceconverts and marries a Christian, Lorenzo. Recent attention, however, to changing ideas of race and identity in the early modern period has brought into question the divisions of Christian/Jew/Moor. Can Jessica convert and no longer be considered the Jew’s daughter? As “gentle” and “fair” is she to be considered gentile and in no way dark (spiritually or racially)? Jessica’s conversion has apparently little religious meaning, but rather she is saved from the Jew her father by marriage to Lorenzo, who becomes Shylock’s heir. Is Jessica’s conversion to be considered a matter of convenience that might, as Launcelot quips, raise the price of hogs, or is it also to be counted as an ideological and racial conversion that reveals underlying anxieties about gender, sexuality, and religious identity? This essay attempts to argue against the grain of the performance history ofThe Merchant History, which often downplays the role of Jessica or revises the text of the play, and returns to the text in order to contextualize the conversion of Jessica in contemporary discourses of gender, race, and religion in England’s expansionist colonialism and proto-capitalist commerce. The conversion of Jessica can be seen in that context as an exchange of monetary and ethical value, in which women’s sexuality also had a price-tag. These questions have implications for the teaching of the play and for the understanding of its concerns with unstable sexual, religious, and national identities.

Identity and Gender Politics in Contemporary Shakespearean Rewriting

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 196-204
Author(s):  
Özlem Özmen
Keyword(s):  
Racial Identity ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Feminist Criticism ◽  
Gender Politics ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Problematic Relationship ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Strong Woman

Abstract Julia Pascal’s The Yiddish Queen Lear, a dramatic adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear, merges racial identity politics with gender politics as the play both traces the history of the Yiddish theatre and offers a feminist criticism of Shakespeare’s text. The use of Lear as a source text for a play about Jews illustrates that contemporary Jewish engagements with Shakespeare are more varied than reinterpretations of The Merchant of Venice. Identity politics are employed in Pascal’s manifestation of the problematic relationship between Lear and his daughters in the form of a conflict between the play’s protagonist Esther, who struggles to preserve the tradition of the Yiddish theatre, and her daughters who prefer the American cabaret. Gender politics are also portrayed with Pascal’s use of a strong woman protagonist, which contributes to the feminist criticism of Lear as well as subverting the stereotypical representation of the domestic Jewish female figure in other dramatic texts.

scholarly journals Antonio: The other Jew in The Merchant of Venice

Literator ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-25
Author(s):  
S. M. Finn
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Religious Orientation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
State Of Mind

Antonio’s melancholy and his excessive hatred of Shylock are two puzzling aspects of The Merchant of Venice, most critics agreeing that the cause of the first is never revealed. However, the two (melancholy and mutual detestation) are closely linked. Antonio’s state of mind, his confusion, is brought on by his being (or, more accurately, having been) a Jew, too, who will always have to play the role of the born Christian. His original religious orientation is revealed throughout the play, showing him to be a converted Jew, or marrano (from the Spanish meaning “swine”), a type of person distrusted and abhorred by both “Old Christians” and Jews. Remarks throughout the play bear this out, and make it understandable why Shylock insists on Antonio’s heart, this being understood in Shakespeare’s day to be the centre of religious identity: he wishes to reclaim a Jewish soul.

Identity and Gender Politics in Contemporary Shakespearean Rewriting

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 196-204
Author(s):  
Özlem Özmen
Keyword(s):  
Racial Identity ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Feminist Criticism ◽  
Gender Politics ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Problematic Relationship ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Strong Woman

Julia Pascal’s The Yiddish Queen Lear, a dramatic adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear, merges racial identity politics with gender politics as the play both traces the history of the Yiddish theatre and offers a feminist criticism of Shakespeare’s text. The use of Lear as a source text for a play about Jews illustrates that contemporary Jewish engagements with Shakespeare are more varied than reinterpretations of The Merchant of Venice. Identity politics are employed in Pascal’s manifestation of the problematic relationship between Lear and his daughters in the form of a conflict between the play’s protagonist Esther, who struggles to preserve the tradition of the Yiddish theatre, and her daughters who prefer the American cabaret. Gender politics are also portrayed with Pascal’s use of a strong woman protagonist, which contributes to the feminist criticism of Lear as well as subverting the stereotypical representation of the domestic Jewish female figure in other dramatic texts.

Representing Shylock: The Performance History of Shakespeare’s Jew as an Indicator and Instigator of Cultural Change

Meliora ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Rubenstein
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Performance History ◽  
Cultural Attitudes ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Almost All

Since its earliest performances, The Merchant of Venice garnered attention for its depiction of Shylock, the greedy Jewish moneylender who takes the protagonist of the play to court, demanding a pound of flesh. Over the centuries, depictions of this character have varied as much as the critical and popular reception to him. In the hands of each actor who newly embodies the character, Shylock can take the shape of a grotesque antisemitic caricature or a sympathetic anti-hero speaking truth to power. While Shylock began as a comic villain whose defeat allows the comedic resolution, almost all modern directors, actors, and audiences are forced to reckon with the cruel antisemitism voiced by the play’s protagonists. In tracing the performance history of this character from the turn of the 17th century, to the Third Reich, to his most recent incarnations, this research resists reducing Shylock to any single interpretation. Instead, this essay argues that Shylock serves as a reflection of the place and time in which he is performed, both an indicator of cultural attitudes and a potential instigator of cultural action towards oppression, justice, and representation of those deemed outsiders.

Maritime Fantasies and Gender Space in Three Shakespearean Comedies

2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-37
Author(s):  
Wai Fong Cheang
Keyword(s):  
Female Characters ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Twelfth Night ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
The Tempest ◽  
Gender Space ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Gender And Space

Abstract Laden with sea images, Shakespeare‘s plays dramatise the maritime fantasies of his time. This paper discusses the representation of maritime elements in Twelfth Night, The Tempest and The Merchant of Venice by relating them to gender and space issues. It focuses on Shakespeare‘s creation of maritime space as space of liberty for his female characters.

Intertheatricality and Propaganda

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Publicover
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Real World ◽  
The Political ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Political Background ◽  
Controversial Nature

This chapter analyses the ways in which the collaborative drama The Travels of the Three English Brothers defends the Sherley brothers’ real-world political endeavours across Europe and Persia through its intertheatrical negotiations. Explaining the political background of those endeavours and their controversial nature, it illustrates how the playwrights liken the Sherleys to the heroes of dramas that had been popular on the early modern stage over the preceding twenty years, in particular Tamburlaine and The Merchant of Venice. It also examines the significance of Francis Beaumont’s specific parody, in The Knight of the Burning Pestle, of an episode in Travels in which the Persian Sophy acts as godfather to the child of Robert Sherley. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the role of playing companies in shaping dramatic output.

History, Politics, Law

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cross Section ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Global Order ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Many

Historians of political thought and international lawyers have both expanded their interest in the formation of the present global order. History, Politics, Law is the first express encounter between the two disciplines, juxtaposing their perspectives on questions of method and substance. The essays throw light on their approaches to the role of politics and the political in the history of the world beyond the single polity. They discuss the contrast between practice and theory as well as the role of conceptual and contextual analyses in both fields. Specific themes raised for both disciplines include statehood, empires and the role of international institutions, as well as the roles of economics, innovation and gender. The result is a vibrant cross-section of contrasts and parallels between the methods and practices of the two disciplines, demonstrating the many ways in which both can learn from each other.

Redefining Censorship

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-142
Author(s):  
Esther B. Schupak
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
The United States ◽  
Educational Choice ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Film Images ◽  
History Of

Abstract Because of its potential for fostering antisemitic stereotypes, in the twentieth century The Merchant of Venice has a history of being subject to censorship in secondary schools in the United States. While in the past it has often been argued that the play can be used to teach tolerance and to fight societal evils such as xenophobia, racism and antisemitism, I argue that this is no longer the case due to the proliferation of performance methods in the classroom, and the resultant emphasis on watching film and stage productions. Because images – particularly film images – carry such strong emotional valence, they have the capacity to subsume other pedagogical aspects of this drama in their emotional power and memorability. I therefore question whether the debate over teaching this play is truly a question of ‘censorship’, or simply educational choice.

scholarly journals Women and Gender in 1917

Slavic Review ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 694-702 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rochelle Goldberg Ruthchild
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Significant Issue ◽  
Women And Gender ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Revolution

This paper argues for greater integration of considerations of women and gender in the history of the 1917 Russian Revolutions. Two key issues have long been discussed by historians: the spontaneity/consciousness paradigm, and the role of class in the revolution. Neither has been adequately analyzed in relation to gender. Women's suffrage has been largely neglected despite the fact that it was a significant issue throughout the year and represented a pioneering advance won by a countrywide coalition of women and men from the working class and intelligentsia, and from almost all political parties. In this centennial year, accounts of the Revolution remain one-dimensional; women remain the other.

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