The Merchant of Venice
First published 1596 · 259 pages
- Drama
- Historical fiction
- Religion and spirituality
The Merchant of Venice is a play set in Venice and the nearby estate of Belmont. Bassanio wants to court the wealthy Portia and asks his friend Antonio, a merchant, for money. Antonio borrows it from Shylock, a Jewish moneylender who has been badly treated by Venetian society, on a dangerous condition. The play mixes romance, comedy and tense drama, and deals with money, mercy, justice and prejudice. Its treatment of Shylock has long made it a work that readers and audiences debate carefully.
Quotes
The quality of mercy is not strain’d, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath.
All that glisters is not gold.
If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?
Love is blind, and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit.