The Merchant of Venice
The playgoers of Shakespeare's times, a successful drama was one that combined a variety of action, along with a mixture of verse and prose in the language used. This variety was achieved, and character and atmosphere was summarized. Modern playwrights tend to describe their characters in detail in the stage directions, leaving very little for the reader to discover. However, Shakespeare's describing of a character is scarce. Usually, when reading Shakespeare's work, the audience has to detect the personality of the character by the character's action in the play, relationship towards other characters in the play , and most of all the character's manner of speech. Most of the times, the passages are of great poetic beauty discussing love, dramatic speeches filled with bombast, humorous speeches, and mischievous wordplays.
Passages of great poetic beauty discussing love are very common in all of Shakespeare's texts. For example in The Merchant of Venice, before Bassanio is about to select the correct casket, he is urged by Portia to delay his selection in case he fails. However Bassanio wishes to continue.
Portia:
I pray you tarry, pause a day or two
Before you hazard, for in choosing wrong
I lose your company. Therefore forbear awhile.
There's something tells me (but it is not love)
I would not lose you, and you know yourself
Hate consels not in such a quality.
But lest you should not understand my well-
And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought-
I would detatin you here some month or two
Before you venture for me. I could teach you
How to choose right, but then I am forsworn.
So will I never be; so may you miss me;
But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin-
That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes!
They have o'erlooked me and divided me;
One half of me is yours, the other half yours-
Mine own, I would say, but if mine, then yours,
And so all yours! O, these naughty times
Put bars between the owners and their rights!
And so, though yours, not yours. Prove it so,
Let Fortune go to hell for it, not I.
I speak too long, but 'tis to piece the time,
To eke it, and to draw it out in length,
To stay you from election.
Bassanio:
Let me choose,
For as I am , I live upon the rack.
This love dialogue between Bassanio and Portia before he chooses is filled with elegant connotation. They are both respective and responsive to one anothe, and they understand each other instantly.
Shakespeare’s plays show the complexity of human beings. Everyone is different in reactions, actions, and thought. Shakespeare explores various themes throughout his writing career. Each play is unique, and their themes are handled in a very distinct way as Shakespeare writes each work with great care. Two major themes are appearance versus reality and relationship between motive and will; Othello, Hamlet, and Henry IV, Part 1 all portray these two themes in similar and different ways.
When Othello sums up their innocent infatuation, we must feel that he is more accurate than he knows:
To conclude, reading the plays of Shakespeare is not only about an entertainment, there is more about learning manhood and the importance of the role that morality plays in everyday life. That is the reason of Shakespeare’s plays are so popular because through his work, he illustrates that: life is a play, which is performed on the earth stage, and his world stage will continue influences the past, modern and further.
William Shakespeare’s dramatic and poetic techniques and his use of hyperbole are used to describe the characters emotions and weaknesses. The use of dramatic irony is used to create personal conflict. This is done throughout the play to describe the characters concerns and their situations.
However, Shakespeare also picks on love. Not only did Malvolio's confusion about his and Olivia's relationship prove to add to the comedy, but it rather showed how one can play with love, and use it for another's harm. Apart from this example, love is depicted as a light and lovely emotion.
We see how she is manipulated by men through her father, who though dead, still manages to control who she marries from his will. He states in his will that from three different caskets the suitors will have to chose, in each of which will contain either a letter to the suitor or a picture of Portia. In one of the three caskets, either the lead, silver or gold casket, there will be a picture of Portia the suitor picking the casket containing the picture will be the suitor who will get to marry Portia. ‘I may neither choose who I would, nor refuse who I dislike, so is the will of living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father’ this shows that Portia would rather have a say as to who she gets to choose rather than being told who she has to marry. She overcomes that after two suitors who she wishes not to marry choose the wrong casket letting her know which casket contains her picture, so that when Bassanio becomes a suitor and she falls for him she is able to hint to him which casket to choose:
It is true that when Bassanio and Portia become engaged she says that “what is mine to you and yours is now converted” (III.ii.167-8). It is true that she is quick to give up all her possessions to Bassanio. However, at the beginning of the scene, when Portia reunites with Bassanio, she says “I pray you tarry, pause a day or two before you hazard, for in choosing wrong I lose your company” (III.ii.1-3). Portia seems to want to be with Bassanio, not for her lack of independence but, because she truly cares for Bassanio. Portia even goes on to be nervous and flustered, as she continued to talk to Bassanio. This shows how some sort of love has come over her, making her unknowledgeable of what to do in this situation. Portia does not want to leave Bassanio’s side and with that, she shares her livelihood not because of a lack of strength and power but because she wants a form of union with Bassanio, as a result of Portia’s love for
– 25) Another way of illuminating that Portia is not appreciated in the The beginning of the play is when Bassanio borrows money from Antonio to woo Portia, telling him that he would pay him back when he marries. Portia. The. This shows that this is Bassanio’s key objective in wooing. her.
Shakespeare’s plays are a product of the Elizabethan theatrical context in which they were first performed. A lot of pressure was put on Shakespeare as he wrote his plays because he was not allowed to upset the royal family. His style would have been different than others in those times and a lot more thought has gone into his writing than people listening would think. Usually, the audience take for granted the cleverness and thought of Shakespeare’s writing, however, now we have studied and gone into great detail about Shakespeare’s writing, we can appreciate it more than they did:
Point #2. Portia creates a way of controlling the future of the relationship between herself and Bassanio. Portia gives Bassanio a ring with the words, "I give you this ring, which when you part from, lose, or give away, / Let it presage the ruin of your love".
In many of Shakespeare’s plays, Shakespeare uses multiple settings to contrast opposing ideas that are central to the meaning of the work. In The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare uses the settings of Venice and Belmont to represent opposing ideas. The city of Venice is an international marketplace. Venice is diverse and full of people from many countries who practice their own religions. Venice is marked by its cultural melting pot and friction, along with its focus on business and greed. In contrast, Belmont is a city in which people flee to in order to get away from the realities of commerce. The city of Belmont is marked by harmony and peace. Many of the characters in the story leave the avaricious city of Venice in order to reside in the
William Shakespeare shows how two tradesmen can have completely different lives when others view them differently in the play The Merchant of Venice. In the play, Bassanio, Antonio’s friend, needs money to pursue his love. They seek a loan from Shylock, a Jewish moneylender in Antonio’s name. The contract is for three times the value of the bond in three months or else Shylock cuts off a pound of flesh from Antonio. While all this is happening, there are love plots going on. One of which is for Shylock’s daughter to elope with Lorenzo, a Christian. Later on, Antonio’s source of money, his ship, is reported sunken in the English Channel, dooming him to the loss of one pound of his flesh. There is a trial on the bond, and when it seems sure that Antonio will die, Portia, disguised as a doctor of laws legally gets Antonio out of the situation and Shylock recieves harsh penalties. Antonio and Shylock, two similar businessmen of Venice, are viewed differently and are treated oppositely to heighten the drama of the play and mold a more interesting plot.
and she wants to marry him. Bassanio, by choosing a. to risk everything he has, shows the effects that true love can have on someone. I will be there. True love can conquer any fears or apprehensions you may have. He was willing to risk everything he had in order to show his love for Portia.
Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice contains many themes and elements that are considered timeless or universal. Samuel Taylor Coleridge defines a timeless or universal element as a “representation of men in all ages and all times.” A universal element is relevant to the life of every human being – it is universal. The first major theme that plays an important role in the play is the Christians’ prejudice against the Jews. A second important theme is the attitude toward money. Perhaps the most important theme of the play is the love between people. This love can occur between the same sex, or the opposite sex, platonic or romantic. In Merchant of Venice, the three timeless elements are prejudice, money, and love.
William Shakespeare's plays come in many forms. There are histories, tragedies, comedies and tragic comedies. Among the most popular are the comedies which are full of laughter, irony, satire and wordplay. Many times the question is asked: what makes a play a comedy instead of a tragedy. Shakespeare's comedies often use puns, metaphors and insults to provoke 'thoughtful laughter'. The action is often strained by artificiality, especially elaborate and contrived endings. Disguises and mistaken identities are often very common. Opposed to that are the tragedies, where the reader would find death, heartbreak, and more serious plots and motives. The plot is very important in Shakespeare's comedies. It is often very convoluted, twisted and confusing, and extremely hard to follow. Other characteristics of Shakespearean comedy are the themes of love and friendship, played within a courtly society. Songs often sung by a jester or a fool, parallel the events of the plot. Minor characters, which add flavor to the plot, are often inserted into the storyline. Love provides the main ingredient. If the lovers are unmarried when the play opens, they either have not met or there is some obstacle to their relationship. Examples of these obstacles are familiar to every reader of Shakespeare: the slanderous tongues which nearly wreck love in "Much Ado About Nothing", the father insistent upon his daughter marrying his choice, as in "A Midsummer Nights Dream", or the confusion of husbands in "The Comedy of Errors".