Bassanio borrows from Antonio, who borrows from Shylock against a pound of his own flesh; Portia, bound by her father’s casket lottery, becomes the instrument of the loan’s undoing. The trial scene is as gripping as anything in the tragedies.
Shylock — wronged, wronging, and given the most humane speech in the play — long ago outgrew the comic villain the plot asks him to be, and the play’s antisemitism and its critique of the Christians’ mercy sit unresolved side by side. Essential, uncomfortable, and permanently modern.
Merchant of Venice on screen
1The Merchant of Venice (2004)
Film · dir. Michael Radford
Reading Merchant of Venice this year?
Mark it in your record when you finish — one seat, kept for decades.