You mean...?:
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, heal'd by the same means,
warm'd and cool'd 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 villainy you teach me, I will execute,
and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
(Act III, scene I)

Those are lines spoken by Shylock, yes.

I don't really think that is anti-semitic, though I have not read the book.

You should probably read the play.

Verily, Shakespear (aka the Earl of Oxford) was an inveterate racist, as was the style of the time. Throughout his works he never misses a chance to point out how ugly blacks are, or what tight-wadded villians be the jews. Indeed, I challenge you to find a sympathetic jew in any of the plays.

Of course, these are the the opinions of characters, not directly the earl himself. But given the quantity of racism and the conviction with which it is expressed, I think its safe to say he was a happy casual racist. Probably a much nicer racist than the average of the time.

Speaking to The Merchant of Venice directly. Obviously it does promote christian values.

The famous lines added above by KoD, are actually an indictment of the jews. Shylock misses the point. "If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge."
Ahh... no. A good christian does not take revenge.

I think the ending of Merchant of Venice is a pretty clear ad absurdeum argument against anti-semitism, if you ask me. Which you sorta did.

sounds like sure, i seek revenge, but you all are also doing it so why are you hating on me? ... i'd have to read the rest of the play to see if shakespeare wanted him to come off as an asshole looking to avoid responsibility or if he wanted the guy to come off as genuine. but i'm not going to. because who cares about some ancient playwright? shakespeare sucks. people who like shakespeare are either pretentious or are trying to be.

^what bolshoi said.

I think Shakespeare was trying to portray Jews as others saw them at the time

well bolshoi, perhaps you should read the play so you can understand bits of it in the proper context. Shylock is disliked by the christians for his VALUES. But he chooses to interpret their 'dislike' as a primitive kind of racism, hence his appeal, as quoted above, which essentially boils down to 'hey we are all human'. As I said, he misses the point. The following lines of this very same scene depict shylocks despair at having lost some valuable jewels and such along with his eloping daughter. He shows no concern for his daughter at all, only the money. This confirms the plays critical attitude to him as representative of the jews.

Bolshoi, you can argue that people who like shakespear are pretentious, whilst I'll argue from an informed position that your argument is a feeble cop-out.

whilst i will argue that those using the word whilst are pretentious

rush me to the BURN unit

(THIS PORTION IS A PRELUDE TO DEAL WITH A PORTION OF FIELDER'S COMMENTS *BEFORE* I TREAT OF THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, SO IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ EXTRA OBI RAMBLINGS, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SKIP THIS.)

OK...where do I BEGIN to disagree, fielder?

Let's start with the charge of racism in general by Shakespeare, shall we?

(I'll let the "Earl of Oxford" thing slide, as THAT little gem of a conspiracy theory is ludicrous enough and I've spent enough time on stating WHY it's rather ludicrous, so unless someone REALLY wants me to get into a fight over the Oxfordian theory, I'll give that a pass.) ;)

Now then, on to the alleged racism...

Let's take a look at Shakespeare's plays, shall we, particularly the ones where we might expect the biggest charges of racism?

Obviously The Merchant of Venice, a that's the topic, we'll return to that...
Othello comes to mind, with the Black/Moor/racism angle...
Titus Andronicus would fall into that category too, then, with Aaron, if Othello does...

Let's just start with those two?

Othello--black man, who kills his wife...and the naysayers cry out "HA! Racism, Othello's words and actions in the last line CLEARLY speak to a racist tone, making him out to be a barbarian and treating blacks as such!"

However...who is the VILLAIN of the play?

The white man, ie, Iago! In fact, he has the VAST majority of lines in the play, all about how much he "hates the Moor" and how evil he is, and how he even DELIGHTS in being evil...

So before we go much further on the racist charge there--when the villain is a white man who OPENLY admit to being the antagonist and ruining the life of the black man based on RACE...how is that a racist play?

Let's take Titus Andronicus, because HERE, anyone else is a Shakespeare fan, we have a hand being raised already; In "Othello," it's made clear, the white man (Iago) is the villain and the black man (Othello) is the tragic hero...

In Titus Andronicus, it's put foward that Aaron, another Moor, is the villain, and goes so far that he'll have his soul "black like his skin" and enjoys evil as much as Iago does in Othello, and it's the white people, ie, the Andronicii clan (and to some extent Tamora and the Goths) who suffer by his villainy.

Two quick points:

1. Aaron is EASILY the strongest and most-in-control character in the play, manipulating EVERYONE...Shakespeare is giving a BLACK character and IMMENSE amount of lines and prominence and power in a play, and essentially allowing him, for 4 Acts, to DEFEAT THE WHITE PEOPLE...

And what's Aaron's motivation?

Like Iago, it's partly based on race--in this case, however, we can treat this a bit more sympathetically, he's a slave lashing out for being made a slave, that's not exactly a racist sentiment at all, if ANYTHING, that'd seem to point to an anti-slavery message almost a la Spartacus, albeit a more Machiavellian, lone-wolf Spartacus--and the other part of that is...he enjoys the power that comes from evil.

Simplistic? In one sense, it is, admittedly (though bear in mind this WAS early on in Shakespeare's career and his very first Tragedy) but in another...recall the early point about his hatred of being a slave...

If you were a slave, with no rights or power over anyone, might not you, too, take pleasure in exerting power, even in a negative way, over your former masters and those who kept you down?

2. The play begins with the two sons of the now-deceased Emperor of Rome, Saturninus and Bassianus, clamoring for public support in Rome to be made the next Emperor...because, in Shakespeare, apparently that's how Roman succession works...

Titus comes, refuses, despite the whole public wanting him to be leader, to become the new Emperor, and chooses Saturninus just because Shakepeare's made-up Roman law gives the right to the eldest of the sons by tradition, even though Bassianus, as we learn, is probably the more empathetic of the two sons.

Titus THEN kills sacrifices a couple of Tamora's (The defeated Goth queen) sons Aztec style to appease the gods because...in Shakespeare's Rome, apparently this is what the Romans do, turn into Aztecs for a moment...

I can go on and on, for a long time, but consider this, just after hearing THAT little tidbit:

How sympathetic are the "good guy" Romans, REALLY, including Titus?

Not all that much?

Now add that throughout the play Tamora, Titus, and Saturninus keep turning on one another, trying to be the most powerful white person in the room...killing more people, raping people...baking them into pies...

How "great" is this society that Aaron is the "villain" by opposing and trying to take down?

Is it just possible Shakespeare's showing how this supposedly-good society really was rotten at its core, and so, while Aaron is the villain without, perhaps he's somewhat justified in trying to put an end to this society that's on board with ritualistic killings and corrupt politicians and murder?

Aaron IS the villain...

But is he a racist caricature, or, instead, a slave trying to overturn a white-run world that's gone corrupt and kept him down?

NEITHER OTHELLO OR AARON, I submit, ARE RACIST...

I submit that Shakespeare, while perhaps he devolves into stereotypes at times--and to be fair, the man wrote about areas of the world he never visited, when you do that, you're very possibly going to use stereotypes, especially in the 1600s--was NOT A RACIST, AT LEAST by the standards of his times, he was actually rather progressive.



NOW, ONTO THE MERCHANT OF VENICE...

I am excited! :D

who is this fielder guy obi keeps talking about? Sounds smart.

ok I'm halfway through your FIRST post, just like to say I'm gutted you won't bite on 'The Earl' bait. Titus! - the movie adaption starring anthony hopkins is awesome btw!

Finished! By golly, Aaron is a social reformer! How did I not see that!? (slaps forehead)

Let's see... he arranges for the murders of an innocent and virtuous young couple, conspires to murder titus's sons and gleefully presents the sons head to titus as a practical joke. And of course stabs to death an innocent mid-wife. What a guy!

I always though Shylock got a raw deal. And Titus Andronicus is hilariously awesome. Every time someone brings up how the Bard was such a class act, I like to remind them of his Michael Bay moments in Titus with the hand cutting and the pie eating.

THE "THE MERCHANT OF VENICE" RESPONSE TO FIELDER FOLLOWS:

OK, fielder, before I get into why this play is certainly a plea for tolerance and, beyond that, I feel is one of Shakespeare's absolute GEMS, and quite possibly his best "social politics" piece--I TRULY love this play, both objectively as a lover of literature and as a Jew, after "Hamlet" and "Macbeth," this is my favorite of his plays, 3rd out of 37, 38 if we count "The Two Noble Kinsman," so you can tell how highly I regard this play--

Let me address a couple of assertions you made that are just factually WRONG:

"Throughout his works he never misses a chance to point out how ugly blacks are, or what tight-wadded villians be the jews."

-Desdemona IS attracted to Othello...she's attracted by his power, in part, but also finds him exotic and, in that sense, beautiful, so, RIGHT THERE, you are absolutely WRONG about Shakespeare always taking the chance to portray blacks as ugly--if anything, for all his personality flaws and insecurities, it's partly his LOOKS that keep Othello attractive to Desdemona in "Othello," so...yeah...

Your point fails THERE.

Next:

-JESSICA in "The Merchant of Venice" is not AT ALL portrayed as tight-wadded...

In fact, she's portrayed as being overwhelmingly kind and in favor of mercy, and far more so than her father, Shylock, who I'll address in a minute...however, Jessica, NOT being a tight-wad or at all uptight or greedy or i any way, shape, or form portrayed as villainous AT ALL, refutes your point about Jews ALWAYS being portrayed as tight-wadded villains in Shakespeare.

Now.

Those who've read/seen the play may, at this point, raise a perfectly reasonable objection here:

Jessica DOES, in fact, convert to Christianity; her father does too, but his is a forced conversion (I'll get to THAT little gem in a minute, on why the Jewish characters, particularly Shylock, are sympathetic) whereas she is far more free in her conversion.

My response?

Jessica doesn't convert because she rejects Judaism/sees the Jews as being terrible or greedy.

She does it so she can 1. Escape the control of her father, 2. Escape the public stigma of her father (both of these points I'll, again, elaborate on when I get to Shylock, which is a piece unto itself) and 3. So she can be with the man he loves.

If you're keeping score...NONE of that is due to the Jews being villainous, the CLOSEST you can come there is by claiming that her father, as the "villain" (again, wait for the Shylock piece, I reject the notion that he's the villain, or at least, simply the villain full-stop) and that, because he doesn't want to see Jessica marry with a Christian, ie, her lover, he tries to persuade her not to, and is angry when she doesn't agree with his view of Christians.

A few things to note:

1. First and foremost, Shylock is in part doing this because--as I'm sure is no shock to the fathers out there--he's rather concerned with who his daughter marries...and as the Christian community has literally spat upon him and treated HIM terribly, he, somewhat justifiably, doesn't want his daughter to marry in with a group pf people he thinks are rather vicious, violent, and could cause her harm based on her background, or just because she's a woman (after all, the number of women that get "claimed" in Shakespeare plays...for all the feminist female characters, there are A LOT, so it's not exactly at all a stretch for Shylock to be worried about his daughter's safety, both from an in-text and meta-textual point of view.)

2. Shylock has just lost his WIFE...Jessica is the only family he HAS...seeing her go AT ALL has to be somewhat of a blow to Shylock, but to the people who have "mocked at [his] losses, scorned at his gains...and what's [their] reason? [He] is a Jew!]"

I ask you all...is it REALLY that hard to relate to a father first fearing for his daughter's safety, then worrying about her marrying in with people he counts as vicious people just short of criminals, and THEN all of this happening just after the loss of his wife, when he's more alone and vulnerable than EVER?

Is Shylock opposing Jessica's marriage THAT unreasonable?

If you think so still, try

3: The fact the CHRISTIANS TAKE THE SAME LINE OF REASONING...they pressure her into conversion a bit as well! Her boyfriend seems pretty nice, but it's pretty clear, he doesn't want to be with a Jew, but does want to be with Jessica...just not AS a Jew, hence her conversion...so, for as bigoted as we might claim Shylock to be, not only is his bigotry towards the Catholics in the play rather understandable, it's reciprocated by the other party!

So, not ONLY is Jessica a rather nice Jew, but her father's opposing her marriage shows concern for her...

Again, BOTH characters, in their own way, serve to discredit your assertion that the Jews are ALWAYS shown as tight-wadded monsters.

"But given the quantity of racism and the conviction with which it is expressed, I think its safe to say he was a happy casual racist."

Take a look at the play the plot of this play was taken from:

Christopher Marlowe's "The Jew of Malta."

THAT is a damn racist play, and with no "Hath not a Jew eyes?" moment, either, to redeem Shylock, to call for tolerance (he's actually calling for tolerance AND doing something else in that speech, but I'll leave that alone, this is long enough already.)

So, Shakespeare's play goes LEAPS AND BOUNDS to make the Jews not only more sympathetic, but infinitely more complex:

I'd ask why a racist would go to the trouble of create these more-complex characters, one of which is portrayed as a good love interest and the other, as I intend to posit--if I need to prove it further--is not really a villain, but an antagonist towards a corrupt society, much like Aaron, but with more humanity and personal reasons for his plots, and so, is something of an early anti-hero, in fact, than a villain...

If you doubt that, consider, again, who Shakespeare gives the great lines to, and the amount of lines he gives...

THAT is usually a good indication of where his sympathies lie--

Do you remember Antonio, all that well?
Or Salerio?

I'd posit...no...especially as most mistake SHYLOCK for the titular "Merchant of Venice," when in fact, he's referring to Antonio--

Surely if Antonio, one of the alleged-"good guys" in the play, was truly Shakespeare's hero, we'd remember him far more vividly?

After all...we remember...

HAMLET rather vividly...
MACBETH rather vividly...
LEAR...
OTHELLO...
ROMEO AND JULIET...

And you can quote each of them, and that's just from the Tragedies--

Now, if someone can tell me, honestly, they can more readily quote Claudius than Hamlet, or Regan than Lear, or Tybalt or Lady Capulet over Romeo or Juliet...by all means.

Otherwise...well, what speeches stick out in this play:

Two, plus one riddle:

Shylock's speech...

And then Portia's "The quality of mercy is not strained" speech, along with her box riddle (if it sounds unfamiliar, if you've ever heard "All that glitters is not gold," this is where the phrase is popularized, as "glisters," it existed before Shakespeare wrote it down, but it's Shakespeare that makes it popular.)

SO.

Portia--a woman--and Shylock--a Jew--are the most important, memorable, sympathetic characters in the play...

A WOMAN AND A JEW...

WHERE'S THAT RACISM/SEXISM AGAIN?

You know the first seven paragraphs of your first post essentially don't say anything, my dear english professor.

"I always though Shylock got a raw deal"

Kind of agree. But would you feel sorry for him if was allowed to murder the gentile and keep all his monies?

OK, before we get to Shylock himself, in his own little thread...

from that fielder guy again ;)

"Finished! By golly, Aaron is a social reformer! How did I not see that!? (slaps forehead)

Let's see... he arranges for the murders of an innocent and virtuous young couple, conspires to murder titus's sons and gleefully presents the sons head to titus as a practical joke. And of course stabs to death an innocent mid-wife. What a guy!"

Did I say social reformer?

I THOUGHT I compared him to...

Spartacus...ie, a slave rebelling against his master society?

Did you confuse Spartacus for John Stuart Mill or Dr. Martin Luther King?

I AM NOT saying he's a social reformer...

He's a slave rebelling against a society that--will you admit--is corrupt?

NOW--are his means wrong?
Yes.
But...what's that line, from "Hamlet"...

"Though this be madness, yet there is method in it."

Aaron's cause is, perhaps, just--his MEANS are not, at all.

But, again, if we're using the test of power and who sticks out as the test of who Shakespeare wants us to care about...

Who do you remember more:

Aaron...or the head of the Roman state he's trying to take down, Saturninus?

Obviously we remember Titus more than Aaron, and Aaron opposes Titus as well, but:

1. He's opposing him as a member of the Romans, not because he's Titus, and
2. Titus BEGINS BY MURDERING TWO SONS IN COLD BLOOD...

Clearly, the moral standards of this play are low enough for AARON'S murders to be seen, perhaps, as an attempt at revolution, if we're to forgive our "hero" for:

-Murdering two unarmed prisoners in Act I, Scene 1...
-Publicly shaming and humiliating the mother of said sons afterward...
-Murdering his OWN son in the Roman streets when he disagrees (naughty, naught...)
-Murdering two other sons of the Queen (though they raped his daughter, so alright...)
-Baking them into a pie and getting his mother to eat it...and, oh! yes!
-Killing the HEAD OF STATE EMPEROR HE PUT IN POWER IN THE FIRST PLACE!

If our white-man "HERO" does all that...

I ask you, fielder:

Is it REALLY that much of a stretch to see Aaron as trying to overthrow the people who have kept him as a slave...

And if we're supposed to morally allow Titus' murders, WELL! can't we allow a few of Aaron's as well, or at least put them on the same moral plane?

If so--

Aaron is on the same plane as out "hero," so...like I said--anti-hero revolutionary using the wrong methods for the right ends, perhaps?

Fully agree Titus is awesome and proof that shakespear (aka The Earl) had balls.

"You know the first seven paragraphs of your first post essentially don't say anything, my dear english professor."

Must've skipped over that part where I refuted your assertion Shakespeare always casts blacks as ugly by using Desdemona's attraction to Othello as a man of beauty and power as a counterexample...

Huh.

I'd have thought such a close-reader like you would've caught that...

Well, to be fair the murder would be in lieu of the monies, but you are right, he would be far less sympathetic then. In fact, he wouldn't be sympathetic at all. But making him convert to Christianity at the end was a bit much.

Obi, your argument that Aaron was a good guy (LOL) because the others were really bad as well, is called moral relativism. You clearly don't actually have much of a grasp on morality at all. Funnily enough, like shylock, you miss the point. And that makes your views on morality worthless.

Basically your argument is: Some of the white people are immoral so therefore the evil murdering black man is an "anti-hero!"
PATHETIC.

Not to even get into the whole twisted delusion that is your interpretation of the merchant! I really can't be bothered.

"our argument that Aaron was a good guy (LOL) because the others were really bad as well, is called moral relativism."

I'm REALLY beginning to gape in disbelief at your (lack of) reading comprehension skills, fielder...

I did NOT call Aaron a good guy...I said at best he might be somewhat of an anti-hero, but then, again, yes, I KNOW what moral relativism is...

You tell ME which of the two are the more heroic in the play:

The man who (let's list them again) is depicted as:

-Murdering two unarmed prisoners in Act I, Scene 1...
-Publicly shaming and humiliating the mother of said sons afterward...
-Murdering his OWN son in the Roman streets when he disagrees (naughty, naught...)
-Murdering two other sons of the Queen (though they raped his daughter, so alright...)
-Baking them into a pie and getting his mother to eat it...and, oh! yes!
-Killing the HEAD OF STATE EMPEROR HE PUT IN POWER IN THE FIRST PLACE!

And ALL for either the status quo of the white-supremacist Roman state, or, come Act III/IV or so, when Titus enters his sort of nihilistic phase after finding out about Lavinia, for his own personal revenge...

OR

The slave who performs less killings...and performs what killings he does because--hang on here--HE'S A SLAVE AND DOESN'T LIKE IT.

You tell ME which is more sympathetic...and if neither are...well then...

Moral relativism ho!

I think YOU, sir, miss the moral point, on all accounts here, and BADLY.

I'm really curious--

What do you see as moral?

Clearly not my moral relativism...alright, then, what's objectively moral, sir, and how, exactly, does Titus Andronicus, responsible for (count them) SIX MURDERS BY HIS OWN HAND--and THREE of those are before he even goes on a revenge plot, so he's not exactly Hamlet, accidentally killing or killing in self-defense or justice, he murders two sons of the Queen in cold blood and then his OWN SON because he dares to disagree with Titus...!--is in keeping with that moral code...

But Aaron, killing because--hey!--it sucks to be a slave and he has no other means of power or freedom, HE doesn't meet that bar of morality set by Titus?

Or, if we're going to take the play that's actually the topic here:

The Christians in the play are allowed to spit on Shylock, refer to him in demeaning and an utterly-unequal and racist level (Shylock is referred to as "the Jew" or "Jew" by the other characters in the play far more times than by HIS OWN NAME), steal from him, take loans with no intention of paying them back, laugh at his losses, scorn his gains, try and rip his family apart, destroy his business, criticize and demonize every aspect of his life and religion, and force him to live in a ghetto, all BEFORE taking his land, property, and wealth in a fixed trial AND FORCING HIM TO CONVERT...

This makes the Christians the moral superiors to Shylock who, after a defaulted loan wherein the contract states that he can kill Antonio for defaulting, says he wants his legal right to have the contract fulfilled?

His wanting to murder a Christian after a LIFETIME of the persecution described above and THEN SOME--this is all going on during/not long after the Spanish Inquisition, here, so if you think Shylock's just an angry old Jew overreacting to the situation, THINK AGAIN--is worse than ALL of what the Christians have done to him?

He's not justified, just a bit, on wanting to take a revenge, particularly one that--again--was written INTO A CONTRACT that Antonio SIGNED and then defaulted on?!



What play were YOU reading, I might ask...or, since you hold yourself to be the bearer of moral superiority in the conversation--

What paragon of morality, AGAIN, makes the Christians and Titus/the Romans that much better, if ANY better, morally, than either Aaron or, more significantly, Shylock?

I REALLY want to know where you're getting THAT moral code of yours.......