Shylock


Shylock is a character in William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice. A Venetian Jewish moneylender, Shylock is the play's principal antagonist. His defeat and conversion to Christianity form the climax of the story.

Name

Shylock is not a Jewish name. However, some scholars believe it probably derives from the biblical name Shalah, which is שלח in Hebrew. Shalah is the grandson of Shem and the father of Eber, biblical progenitor of Hebrew peoples. All the names of Jewish characters in the play derive from minor figures listed in genealogies in the Book of Genesis. It is possible that Shakespeare originally intended the name to be pronounced with a short "i", as rather than a long one. The modern pronunciation has changed because the standard spelling with a "y" signifies to readers a long 'i' pronunciation. Other scholars emphasise that, although the name echoes some Hebrew names, "Shylock" was a common sixteenth-century English name that would have been familiar to Shakespeare's fellow Londoners, and the name is notable for its Saxon origin, meaning "white-haired". The Shylocks of sixteenth-century London included "goldsmiths, mercers, and, most visibly of all, scriveners", according to prominent scholar Stephen Orgel, a Stanford professor who serves as general editor of The Pelican Shakespeare series from Penguin.
Gordon Clark mentions another possibility. At the time, the prefix shy- meant "of questionable character, disreputable, shady", while shy-cock was slang for "a wary or cowardly person." Michael Lok was governor of the Cathay Company, which financed Martin Frobisher's disastrous voyage of 1578; he carried back 1,350 tons of "gold ore" which turned out to be worthless iron pyrite. The venture, therefore, entirely failed, and in January 1579 he had to petition the Privy Council for relief and assistance. In June 1581 he was again petitioning the Privy Council, from the Fleet Prison, condemned at the suit of William Borough to pay for a ship bought for Frobisher's last voyage, though he claimed the debt was not his; he was also bound for a larger debt of the Cathay Company. In 1614–15 he was still being sued for a debt for stores supplied to Frobisher's ships. Calling an untrustworthy businessman "shy Lok" would be an easily understood reference to Elizabethans.

In the play

Shylock is a Jew who lends money to his Christian rival Antonio, setting the security at a pound of Antonio's flesh. When a bankrupt Antonio defaults on the loan, Shylock demands the pound of flesh. This decision is fuelled by his sense of revenge, for Antonio had previously insulted, physically assaulted and spat on him in the Rialto dozens of times, defiled the "sacred" Jewish religion and had also inflicted massive financial losses on him. Meanwhile, Shylock's daughter, Jessica, falls in love with Antonio's friend Lorenzo and converts to Christianity, leaves Shylock's house and steals vast riches from him, which add to Shylock's rage and harden his resolve for revenge. In the end – due to the efforts of Antonio's well-wisher, Portia – Shylock is charged with attempted murder of a Christian, carrying a possible death penalty, and Antonio is freed without punishment. Shylock is then ordered to surrender half of his wealth and property to the state and the other half to Antonio. However, as an act of "mercy", Antonio modifies the verdict, asking Shylock to hand over only one-half of his wealth – to him for his own as well as Lorenzo's need – provided that he keeps two promises. First, Shylock has to sign an agreement bequeathing all his remaining property to Lorenzo and Jessica, which is to become effective after his demise, and second, he is to immediately convert to Christianity. Shylock is forced to agree to these terms, and he exits citing illness.

Historical background

In Shakespeare's time, no Jews had been legally present in England for several hundred years. However, stereotypes of Jews as money lenders remained from the Middle Ages. Historically, money lending had been a fairly common occupation among Jews, in part because Christians were not permitted to practise usury, then considered to mean charging interest of any kind on loans, and Jews were excluded from other fields of work. At the same time, most Christian kings forbade Jews to own land for farming or to serve in the government, and craft guilds usually refused to admit Jews as artisans. Thus money lending was one of the few occupations still open to Jews.
Hyam Maccoby argues that the play is based on medieval morality plays, exemplum, in which the Virgin Mary argues for the forgiveness of human souls, as against the implacable accusations of the Devil.

Portrayal

Shylock on stage

and others report that the tradition of playing Shylock sympathetically began in the first half of the 19th century with Edmund Kean. Previously the role had been played "by a comedian as a repulsive clown or, alternatively, as a monster of unrelieved evil". Kean's Shylock established his reputation as an actor.
Since Kean's time, many other actors who have played the role have chosen a sympathetic approach to the character. Edwin Booth was a notable exception, playing him as a simple villain, although his father Junius Brutus Booth had portrayed the character sympathetically. Henry Irving's portrayal of an aristocratic, proud Shylock has been called "the summit of his career". Jacob Adler was the most notable of the early 20th century actors in this role, speaking in Yiddish in an otherwise English-language production.
Kean and Irving presented a Shylock justified in wanting his revenge. Adler's Shylock evolved over the years he played the role, first as a stock Shakespearean villain, then as a man whose better nature was overcome by a desire for revenge, and finally as a man who operated not from revenge but from pride. In a 1902 interview with Theater magazine, Adler pointed out that Shylock is a wealthy man, "rich enough to forgo the interest on three thousand ducats" and that Antonio is "far from the chivalrous gentleman he is made to appear. He has insulted the Jew and spat on him, yet he comes with hypocritical politeness to borrow money of him." Shylock's fatal flaw is to depend on the law, but "would he not walk out of that courtroom head erect, the very apotheosis of defiant hatred and scorn?"
Some modern productions explore the justification of Shylock's thirst for vengeance. For instance, in the 2004 film adaptation directed by Michael Radford and starring Al Pacino as Shylock, the film begins with text and a montage of how the Jewish community is abused by the Christian population of the city. One of the last shots of the film also highlights that, as a convert, Shylock would have been cast out of the Jewish community in Venice, no longer allowed to live in the ghetto. But he would likely not have been fully accepted by the Christians, as they would remember his Jewish birth. Another interpretation of Shylock and a vision of how "must he be acted" appears at the conclusion of the autobiography of Alexander Granach, a noted Jewish stage and film actor in Weimar Germany.

Other representations

's play The Lady of Belmont is a sequel to The Merchant of Venice where the characters meet again some years later. All of the marriages that ended The Merchant of Venice are unhappy, Antonio is an obsessive bore reminiscing about his escape from death, but Shylock, freed from religious prejudice, is richer than before and a close friend and confidante of the Doge.
Arnold Wesker's play The Merchant is a reimagining of Shakespeare's story. In this retelling, Shylock and Antonio are friends and share a disdain for the crass antisemitism of the Christian community's laws.
The award-winning monologue Shylock by Canadian playwright Mark Leiren-Young, focuses on a Jewish actor named Jon Davies, who is featured as Shylock in a production of The Merchant of Venice. Jon addresses his audience at a "talk back" session, after the play is closed abruptly due to controversy over the play's alleged antisemitism. Davies is portrayed both in and out of character, presenting and stripping down the layers between character and actor. Composed in one 80-minute act, it premiered at Bard on the Beach on 5 August 1996, where it was directed by John Juliani and starred popular Canadian radio host, David Berner. Its American debut was in 1998 at Philadelphia's Walnut Street Theatre where it was directed by Deborah Block, starred William Leach and was "Barrymore Recommended". It has since been produced at theatres, Shakespeare Festivals and Fringes throughout Canada and the US, was translated for a production in Denmark and has been staged twice by the original actor, Berner, in Venice.

Notable portrayals

Notable actors who have portrayed Shylock include Richard Burbage in the 16th century, Charles Macklin in 1741, Edmund Kean in 1814, William Charles Macready in 1840, Edwin Booth in 1861, Henry Irving in 1880, George Arliss in 1928, and John Gielgud in 1937. Under Nazi rule in 1943, the Vienna Burgtheater presented a notoriously extreme production of The Merchant of Venice with Werner Krauss as an evil Shylock.
After World War II, productions were sometimes featured on TV and in film as well as on stage. Laurence Olivier at the Royal National Theatre in 1972 and on TV in 1973, Patrick Stewart in 1965 at the Theatre Royal, Bristol and 1978. In addition, Stewart developed a one-man show and produced it while acting in the role in 1987 and 2001. Al Pacino acted as Shylock in a 2004 feature film version as well as in Central Park in 2010. F. Murray Abraham played this character at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2006. In 2015 and 2016, David Serero plays Shylock in New York at the Center for Jewish History. Jonathan Pryce played the role in the Globe theatre in the summer of 2015. This was followed by a touring production in 2016. Pryce's daughter performs the role of Jessica in the production.

Shylock and antisemitism

Since Shakespeare's time, the character's name has become a synonym for loan shark, and as a verb to means to lend money at exorbitant rates. In addition, the phrase "pound of flesh" has also entered the lexicon as slang for a particularly onerous or unpleasant obligation.

Antisemitic reading

English society in the Elizabethan era has been described as antisemitic.
It was not until the twelfth century that in northern Europe, a region until then peripheral but at this point expanding fast, a form of Judeophobia developed that was considerably more violent because of a new dimension of imagined behaviors, including accusations that Jews engaged in ritual murder, profanation of the host, and the poisoning of wells. With the prejudices of the day against Jews, atheists and non-Christians in general, Jews found it hard to fit in with society. Some say that these attitudes provided the foundations of anti-semitism in the 20th century.
English Jews had been expelled in 1290; Jews were not allowed to settle in the country until the rule of Oliver Cromwell. In the 16th and early 17th centuries, Jews were often presented on the Elizabethan stage in hideous caricature, with hooked noses and bright red wigs. They were usually depicted as avaricious usurers; an example is Christopher Marlowe's play The Jew of Malta, which features a comically wicked Jewish villain called Barabas. They were usually characterised as evil, deceptive, and greedy.
During the 1600s in Venice and in other places, Jews were required to wear a red hat at all times in public to ensure that they were easily identified. If they did not comply with this rule, they could face the death penalty. In Venice, Jews had to live in a ghetto protected by Christians which was probably for their own safety. The Jews were expected to pay their guards.
Shakespeare's play reflected the antisemitic tradition. The title page of the Quarto indicates that the play was sometimes known as The Jew of Venice in its day, which suggests that it was seen as similar to Marlowe's The Jew of Malta. One interpretation of the play's structure is that Shakespeare meant to contrast the mercy of the main Christian characters with the vengeful Shylock, who lacks the religious grace to comprehend mercy. Similarly, it is possible that Shakespeare meant Shylock's forced conversion to Christianity to be a "happy ending" for the character, as it 'redeems' Shylock both from his unbelief and his specific sin of wanting to kill Antonio. This reading of the play would certainly fit with the antisemitic trends present in Elizabethan England.

Sympathetic reading

Many modern readers and audiences have read the play as a plea for tolerance, with Shylock as a sympathetic character. Shylock's 'trial' at the end of the play is a mockery of justice, with Portia acting as a judge when she has no real right to do so. Shakespeare does not question Shylock's intentions, but that the very people who berated Shylock for being dishonest have resorted to trickery in order to win. Shakespeare gives Shylock one of his most eloquent speeches:
Alexander Granach, who played Shylock in Germany in the 1920s, writes,
ow does it happen that Shylock's defense becomes an accusation?... The answer must be a perfectly simple one. God and Shakespeare did not create beings of paper, they gave them flesh and blood! Even if the poet did not know Shylock and did not like him, the justice of his genius took the part of his black obstacle and, out of its prodigal and endless wealth, gave Shylock human greatness and spiritual strength and a great loneliness—things that turn Antonio's gay, singing, sponging, money-borrowing, girl-stealing, marriage-contriving circle into petty idlers and sneak thieves.

Influence on antisemitism

Antisemites have used the play to support their views throughout its history. The 1619 edition has a subtitle of "With the Extreme Cruelty of Shylock the Jew ..." The Nazis used Shylock for their propaganda. Shortly after Kristallnacht in 1938, the German radio had broadcast a production of The Merchant of Venice to reinforce stereotypes. Productions of the play followed in Lübeck, Berlin, and elsewhere within Nazi-occupied territory.
The depiction of Jews in the literature of England and other English-speaking countries throughout the centuries was influenced by the Shylock character and similar stereotypes. With slight variations much of English literature up until the 20th century depicts the Jew as "a monied, cruel, lecherous, avaricious outsider tolerated only because of his golden hoard".