"Cliff Notes - Merchant of Venice, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

enjoyed by all classes of people from the most educated to the
illiterate. Shakespeare's acting troupe sometimes performed before
the royal court, and as he became a shareholder in the company it is
likely that he earned a comfortable living. Nevertheless, many
Elizabethans felt that the acting profession was not quite
respectable. (For this reason, no actresses were allowed on the
stage. All the female parts were played by young boys.)

The Shakespeare plays we know today were written over a period of
some twenty years, beginning in 1592 or a little earlier and ending
with the playwright's retirement about 1612. The Merchant of Venice
belongs to the early part of Shakespeare's career. It was first
performed in 1596, which places it after such early plays as Richard
III, Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer Night's Dream, but before his
foremost tragedies--Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth--and such
later dark comedies as Twelfth Night and The Tempest.

Shakespeare lived during one of the most prosperous and exciting
periods in his nation's history. England was in the process of
becoming a great naval power and a leader in international trade.
Elizabeth I, who reigned for 45 years until her death in 1603, was a
much-admired and extremely shrewd ruler. She survived many threats
to her power, including plots aimed at overthrowing her in favor of
her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots and an attempted invasion by the
Spanish Armada in 1588.

There was a great deal of interest in history and in the lives of
the great men and women of past generations. Playgoers took it for
granted that they could draw inspiration and moral lessons from
events of the past. Even the comedies, like The Merchant of Venice,
were often based on stories and themes drawn from older literary
works or from folklore. No one considered such borrowing to reflect
a lack of originality.

The Merchant of Venice is exceptional among Shakespeare's plays
because it may have been inspired, at least indirectly, by a
contemporary scandal. In 1594 the Queen's personal physician
Roderigo Lopez, a Portuguese Jew, was tried and executed for treason.
The Lopez case inspired a wave of anti-Jewish feeling, and was
probably responsible for the appearance of several dramas dealing
with Jewish characters, including a revival of Christopher Marlowe's
The Jew of Malta. If the Lopez affair did serve as Shakespeare's
inspiration, only a few hints of this remain in the text of The
Merchant of Venice. (One of these is that the hero of the play may
be named for Don Antonio, the pretender to the Portuguese throne,
who was associated with Dr. Lopez.) In Shakespeare's hands, the
Jewish villain became a complex character whose drive for revenge
many playgoers can understand and even sympathize with. And the
elements of treachery and suspense are balanced with lighthearted
romance, creating a drama which many audiences find more satisfying