In a class on Shakespeare I once took, we had a heated argument about whether TMoV was an anti-semitic play or not, which left me wondering: what does it mean for something to be an anti-Semitic play? If we're talking about authorial intent, Shakespeare probably did absorb some of his culture's stereotypes about Jewish people, but he clearly also saw those stereotypes as problematic and ultimately destructive. It would have been interesting to see what Shakespeare would have done with TMoV conceived of as a straight-up tragedy--I wonder how much of the play's anti-Semitism comes from the fact that Shakespeare started out to write a comedy. It's also interesting to compare Shylock with Othello, another "Other' character but this time the star of his own tragedy.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2006-10-23 12:48 pm (UTC)In a class on Shakespeare I once took, we had a heated argument about whether TMoV was an anti-semitic play or not, which left me wondering: what does it mean for something to be an anti-Semitic play? If we're talking about authorial intent, Shakespeare probably did absorb some of his culture's stereotypes about Jewish people, but he clearly also saw those stereotypes as problematic and ultimately destructive. It would have been interesting to see what Shakespeare would have done with TMoV conceived of as a straight-up tragedy--I wonder how much of the play's anti-Semitism comes from the fact that Shakespeare started out to write a comedy. It's also interesting to compare Shylock with Othello, another "Other' character but this time the star of his own tragedy.