Language:
English
Year of publication:
1993
Titel der Quelle:
Commentary
Angaben zur Quelle:
96,1 (1993) 29-34
Keywords:
Shakespeare, William,
;
Shylock In literature
;
Gross, John,
;
Antisemitism in literature
Abstract:
Relating to John Gross's work "Shylock: A Legend and Its Legacy" (1992), reflects on the extraordinary magnetism exerted by this play on audiences and directors. The ultimate power of the play resides in Shylock - in the dichotomy between his dramatically archetypal role as ill-spirited obstacle in the comic plot and his ethnically archetypal role as bloodsucking Jewish moneylender. There is a dissonance between the antisemitic conception of Shylock and the moments of incipient empathy with him. Productions of "The Merchant of Venice" have generally opted for the humane, suffering Shylock or the diabolic one. But the magnetism of the work is generated by the interplay between the two perspectives. Notes, too, that the play invites Christian audiences to a kind of out-of-self experience, to reexamine the belief that the sinister Other embodies all the hateful qualities that Christian culture would like to think are alien to it.
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