The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakespeare’s most beautiful plays and, conversely, his ugliest. Juxtaposed within the same conceptual frame are heavenly and musical harmonies, romantic love, materialism, and racism. This Norton Critical Edition has been carefully edited to make The Merchant of Venice, its surrounding history, and the history of its critical reception and rewritings accessible to readers. The text of this edition is based on the 1600 First Quarto, with light editing and substantial explanatory annotations by Leah S. Marcus. and accompanied by ample explanatory annotation.

List of Illustration

Preface

The Text of The Merchant of Venice

 The Merchant of Venice

 A Note on the Text

 Sources and Contexts

 Richard Robinson, trans.·[The Tale of the Three Caskets from the Gesta Romarorum]

 Sir Giovanni Fiorentino·[The Merchant of Venice]

 Anonymous·[Ballad of a Cruel Jew]

 Sir Thomas Elyot·[The True Meaning of Friendship]

 Edwin Sandys·[Duties of Husband and Wife]

 Daniel Price·The Merchant: A Sermon Preached at Paul’s Cross

 Thomas Coryat·[Description of Venice]

 William Camden·[The Case of Dr. Lopez]

 Thomas Calvert·[Causes of the Miseries of the Jews]

 Peter Heylyn·[Judaizing Christians in the 1590s]

 Sir Simonds D’Ewes·[Parlimentary Debate on Usury]

 Edward Nicholas·An Apology for the Honorable Nation of the Jews

Criticism

 Nicholas Rowe·[Remarks on The Merchant of Venice]

 William Hazlitt·The Merchant of Venice

 Mrs. Anna Jameson·Portia

 Heinrich Heine·[Jessica and Portia]

 Sigmund Freud·The Theme of the Three Caskets

 G. Wilson Knight·[The Music of The Merchant of Venice]

 Barbara K. Lewalski·Biblical Allusion and Allegory in The Merchant of Venice

 Lawrence Danson·[Platonic Doctrine and the Music of Art V]

 Derek Cohen·Shylock and the Idea of the Jew

 Lawrence Lerner·Wilhelm S. and Shylock

 Toby Lelyveld·[Edmund Kean as Shylock]

 James Shapiro·[Circumcision and the "Pound of Flesh"]

 Stephen Orgel·[Shylocks in Shakespeare’s England]

 Charles Edelman·[The Shakespeares as Money-Lenders]

 Walter Cohen·[The Merchant of Venice and Proto-Capitalism]

 Karen Newman·Portia’s Ring: Unruly Women and Structures of Exchange in The Merchant of  Venice

 Alan Sinfield·How to Read The Merchant of Venice Without Being Heterosexist

 James O’Rourke·Racism and Homophobia in The Merchant of Venice

 Kim F. Hall·Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? Colonization and Miscegenation in The Merchant of  Venice

 R. W. Desai·"Mislike Me Not for My Complexion": Whose Mislike? Portia’s?, Shakespeare’s, or  That of His Age?

 Avraham Oz·The Merchant of Venice in Israel

Rewritings and Appropriations

 John Cunningham·[Prologue for a Revival of The Merchant of Venice at the Time of the  Parliamentary Bill for Naturalizing the Jews]

 Iain Crichton Smith·Shylock

 Alan Sillitoe·Shylock the Writer

 Karl Shapiro·Shylock

 Leonard Nathan·Shylock in New York

 Fiona Pitt-Kethley·Shylock

 Other Rewritings and Appropriations

 Selected Bibliography