The Merchant of Venice: Authoritative Text, Sources and Contexts, Criticism, Rewritings and Appropriations

Shakespeare, William ; Edited by Leah Marcus; Sources and contexts: Richard Robinson, Ser Giovanni Fiorentin, Thomas Elyot, Edwin Sandys, Daniel Price, Thomas Coryat, William Camden, Thomas Calvert, Peter Heylyn, Simonds D'Ewes, and Edward Nicholas; Criticism: Nicholas Rowe, William Hazlitt, Anna Jameson, Heinrich Heine, Sigmund Freud, G. Wilson Knight, Barbara Lewalski, Lawrence Danson, Derek Cohen, Laurence Lerner, Toby Lelyveld, James Shapiro, Stephen Orgel, Charles Edelman, Walter Cohen, Karen Newman, Alan Sinfield, James O'Rourke, Kim Hall, R.W. Desai, and Avraham Oz; Rewritings and Appropriations: John Cunningham, Iain Crichton Smith, Alan Sillitoe, Karl Shapiro, Leonard Nathan, and Fiona Pitt-Kethley.

ISBN 10: 0393925293 / ISBN 13: 9780393925296

Published by W. W. Norton & Company, New York, New York / London, England, 2006

About this Item

xiii, 347 pp. Softcover. LCC: 2005053425 Good condition; touches of wear on covers; slight water warping near bottom edges of pages.

Seller Inventory # VIRE02170266

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Merchant of Venice: Authoritative Text, Sources and Contexts, Criticism, Rewritings and Appropriations
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, New York, New York / London, England
• Publication Date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393925293
• ISBN 13: 9780393925296
• Binding: Softcover

About this title

Synopsis

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.

"Sources and Contexts" largely focuses on the character of Shylock and the issue of anti-Semitism in the play. Materials included are diverse, and at times contradictory, allowing readers to draw their own conclusions. Examples include seventeenth-century anti-Semitic literature, an essay from the same period defending Jews and arguing for their repatriation in England, an examination of the Christian theology of the play, and readings of The Merchant of Venice as exclusionary for Jews, women, and people of color.

"Criticism" collects twenty-one diverse interpretations. In addition to Shylock and the question of anti-Semitism, these essays address The Merchant of Venice in the context of postcolonial, feminist, and queer theory and explore relevant issues of economic status and organization.

"Rewritings and Appropriations" includes excerpts from dramatic, musical, and other literary adaptations of The Merchant of Venice, as well as a selection of poems, most of them from the twentieth century, on the character of Shylock.

About the Author

Leah S. Marcus is Edwin Mims Professor of English at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of Childhood and Cultural Despair, The Politics of Mirth, Puzzling Shakespeare, and Unediting the Renaissance. She has edited two volumes of the writings of Queen Elizabeth I (with Janel Mueller and Mary Beth Rose), a Norton Critical Edition of The Merchant of Venice, and an Arden Early Modern Drama text of John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi.