El Mercader de Venècia (1596)

Ah, the origin of the proverbial requirement of a pound of flesh. It is difficult now to read a play with such overt anti-Semitism. Shylock is a despicable character since he wants Antonio's pound of flesh even though he is offered payment of three times what he is owed. But Antonio has treated Shylock horribly in the past for being a Jew, so really Shylock simply wants what may be justifiable revenge.

Much of what is supposed to be funny in this play is not particularly funny as it is directed at Shylock based on his being Jewish, so there was too much to dislike to rate it higher. However, I appreciated that Portia played such a key role in this play. Shakespeare has some strong female characters and Portia stands out as one with beauty, brains, wealth, and social standing. She must be fun to play in a theater production but I, for one, get tired of women dressing as a man in Shakespeare's plays so I wish she didn't have to do that to foil Shylock's plan. ( )

Aunque tiene elementos claramente trasnochados como mujeres disfrazadas de hombres y ni sus maridos las distingen, tambien tiene elementos muy interesantes.
En particular hay varias historias contadas en paralelo. Una historia de odio, una de amistad, una de amor (o varias), otra de libertad, de relaciones fraternales.

Las grandes preguntas de la vida, en formato comedia sin aparentes ambiciones. Este Shakespeare tenia algo especial.

Por cierto, mucha gente se queja de sus parrafos anti-judios. Si, la historia de odio pone a un judio como el malo y lo caracteriza como envidioso y tacaño. Si esto hiere su sensibilidad, no lea este libro. ( )

Like all the Arden third editions, John Drakakis' "Merchant of Venice" is impeccably researched and analysed, with fascinating, deep textual notes on the entire text, and an intelligent, lengthy introduction. Like all Ardens, it's aimed at scholars and armchair readers, although it functions mainly as an appetiser to scholarship and criticism on the play, inviting you to peruse the hundreds of texts mentioned in the appendices and index at your leisure.

Drakakis has clearly been a "Merchant" scholar for some time, as his richly detailed section of the introduction catalogues notable productions from the past 400 years. However, as opposed to some Ardens - like R.A. Foakes' classic "King Lear" that I just read - this is probably the most academic introduction that I have read, after about 25 of this series! It's incredibly dense and philosophical, very much a scholarly text.

(Another example of this would be in the textual notes. While the actual analysis of the text is one of the most breathtaking and deep of all the Ardens, it's interesting to see that in his bottom-of-the-page lists of textual emendations, Drakakis includes much more than most other Arden editors. He'll include simple spelling discrepancies between editions (e.g. "Farewell" vs "Farewel" in F and Q texts, or speech prefixes that have been regularised.)

Recommended very much, but the introduction is more of a philosophical thesis than a literary analysis, for what it's worth. ( )

Great, friendly edition that attempts to grapple with the numerous issues this play presents. ( )

Loved it!! I had so much fun acting this out!! ( )