The red-bearded man holds the knife high, poised to strike at his victim's heart. The spectators are paralyzed with fear. Can anything prevent him from gaining his bloody revenge? The powerful Duke of Venice has already tried and failed. The only remaining hope lies in a beautiful heroine, who has no weapons to draw upon except a quick wit and a courageous spirit.

This suspenseful scene from The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare has beenreenacted thousands of times since the play's first performance in the 1590s, and it never failsto keep audiences enthralled. Along with the tragedy of Hamlet, it is one of the more popular and frequently revived of Shakespeare's plays. It is also one of the most controversial. Some readers and playgoers find in the play an eloquent plea for tolerance; others feel uncomfortable with its reliance on what they regard as anti-Semitic stereotypes. The critics, meanwhile, cannot even agree on whether the mood of the play is happy or sad. Some describe it as a light, witty comedy with no social message whatsoever. Others have called it more tragic than comic in spirit. In spite of all this disagreement, The Merchant of Venice remains as compelling today as it was four centuries ago because it comments so eloquently on universal themes-the drive for revenge and the power of love. As the British essayist William Hazlitt wrote in 1817, "This is a play that in spite of the change in manners and prejudices, still holds undisputed possession of the stage."

The Merchant of Venice's author was a genius, the most skillful and profound dramatist in English literary history. Yet very little is known about the personal life and character of this uniquely talented man. Indeed, the documentary evidence concerning the life of William Shakespeare is so meager that for generations amateur detectives, and a few serious literary historians, have been tempted to theorize that the works of Shakespeare were really written by one of his more illustrious contemporaries. Christopher Marlowe, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Bacon, and even Queen Elizabeth I, have all been named at one time or another as the true authors of Shakespeare's plays. A recent theory, which appeared in a 1984 book called The Mysterious William Shakespeare by Charlton Ogburn, contends that a nobleman named Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, wrote all of Shakespeare's works-but pretended not to have done so because authorship would have hurt his chances to shine at court!

Everyone loves a mystery, and so the speculation continues. The real reason for the belief that Shakespeare was a mere front for some other author is the snobbish prejudice that only a person of aristocratic breeding and wealth could have produced such great writing. The story of Shakespeare's life, sketchy as it may be, demonstrates that genius may appear anywhere, even in a country village and an undistinguished family tree.

Born in Stratford-upon-Avon in April of 1564, William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, a glove-maker and storekeeper, and Mary Arden. (It has become traditional to celebrate Shakespeare's birthday on April 23, the same date as the anniversary of his death. Like so much in Shakespeare's biography, this, too, is speculative.) William was the third of eight children. The Shakespeares were not wealthy, at least not by the standards of the London aristocracy, but they weren't poor either.

If Shakespeare was like most sons of prosperous tradesmen, he attended a local grammar school where he would have studied the Latin classics. The plots of Shakespeare's plays, which borrow freely from other sources, suggest that he was well read in both ancient and modern literature. However, he never attended a university.

The only documented episode in Shakespeare's life which provides any raw material for gossip was his marriage in 1582. Shakespeare's bride, Anne Hathaway, was seven or eight years older than he, and records show that the marriage license was issued on November 28. The engagement was announced in church only once-not three Sundays in a row as was the usual custom. Some five months later, in May 1583, Anne Shakespeare gave birth to a daughter, who was named Susanna. Some scholars conclude from this that Shakespeare had gotten Anne pregnant and had to marry her. This position is challenged by other scholars who either claim that it was not unusual at the time for an engaged couple to sleep together or that the documentary records are simply unreliable.

Two years later, Anne Shakespeare gave birth to twins, a girl, Judith, and a boy,Hamnet. At some time during the 158O's we're not sure exactly when-Shakespeare went off to London to make his fortune in the theater. We do know that by 1592 William Shakespeare had earned a reputation in London as an actor and playwright. In 1597, when Shakespeare was only thirty-three years old and still had some of his greatest work ahead of him, Francis Meres, a preacher and scholar, was already praising the "mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare" as the equal of the great Roman dramatists Seneca and Plautus. The theater was a very popular form of entertainment in Elizabethan times, so named for Queen Elizabeth I, England's monarch. It was enjoyed by all classes of people from the most educated to the illiterate. Shakespeare's acting troupe sometimes performed before the royal court, and as he became a shareholder in the company it is likely that he earned a comfortable living.

Nevertheless, many Elizabethans felt that the acting profession was not quite respectable. (For this reason, no actresses were allowed on the stage. All the female parts were played by young boys.) The Shakespeare plays we know today were written over a period of some twenty years, beginning in 1592 or a little earlier and ending with the playwright's retirement about 1612. The Merchant of Venice belongs to the early part of Shakespeare's career. It was first performed in 1596, which places it after such early plays as Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer Night's Dream, but before his foremost tragedies-Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth-and such later dark comedies as Twelfth Night and The Tempest.

Shakespeare lived during one of the most prosperous and exciting periods in his nation's history. England was in the process of becoming a great naval power and a leader in international trade. Elizabeth I, who reigned for 45 years until her death in 1603, was a much-admired and extremely shrewd ruler. She survived many threats to her power, including plots aimed at overthrowing her in favor of her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots and an attempted invasion by the Spanish Armada in 1588.

There was a great deal of interest in history and in the lives of the great men and women of past generations. Playgoers took it for granted that they could draw inspiration and moral lessons from events of the past. Even the comedies, like The Merchant of Venice, were often based on stories and themes drawn from older literary works or from folklore. No one considered such borrowing to reflect a lack of originality.

The Merchant of Venice is exceptional among Shakespeare's plays because it may have been inspired, at least indirectly, by a contemporary scandal. In 1594 the Queen's personal physician Roderigo Lopez, a Portuguese Jew, was tried and executed for treason. The Lopez case inspired a wave of anti-Jewish feeling, and was probably responsible for the appearance of several dramas dealing with Jewish characters, including a revival of Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta. If the Lopez affair did serve as Shakespeare's inspiration, only a few hints of this remain in the text of The Merchant of Venice. (One of these is that the hero of the play may be named for Don Antonio, the pretender to the Portuguese throne, who was associated with Dr. Lopez.) In Shakespeare's hands, the Jewish villain became a complex character whose drive for revenge many playgoers can understand and even sympathize with.

And the elements of treachery and suspense are balanced with lighthearted romance, creating a drama which many audiences find more satisfying than Shakespeare's farcical early comedies. We do not know the exact date of The Merchant of Venice's first performance. Most likely it was in 1596. It was revived during Shakespeare's lifetime, for a performance at court before King James I in 1605.

After his retirement in 1612, William Shakespeare moved back to hiis hometown of Stratford where he lived the quiet life of a country gentleman. He died in 1616, survived by his widow and two daughters. (Hamnet, the only son, died in childhood.) Although Shakespeare had a certain reputation as the author of the Sonnets and several narrative poems, no one had any reason to anticipate at the time that his plays would be the basis of lasting literary fame, much less become celebrated as masterpieces of English literature.

Shakespeare does not seem to have taken any interest at all in preserving his works for posterity. As was traditional at the time, the rights to Shakespeare's plays belonged to his theater company and were not considered his personal property. In fact, Elizabethans did not usually think of contemporary plays as being serious literature.

A few of Shakespeare's plays were published in his lifetime in cheap editions. These versions contained a good many errors. Sometimes stage directions or comments written in by the prompters got mixed up with Shakespeare's lines. Sometimes the actual speeches were based not on what Shakespeare wrote down, but on how the actor who had played the part interpreted Shakespeare's intentions.

The research of J. L. Cardozo in The Contemporary Jew in Elizabethan Drama has made it clear that Shakespeare did not know any Jews personally and that he was not actively engaged in an antiSemitic crusade. He was simply following a cent uriesold stereotype of the Jewish people which had penetrated the life and literature of western Europe and survived in England long after the Jews had been exiled from that country. It is to Shakespeare's credit that he was able to impart human qual ities to Shylock even while he perpetuated the stereotype; he created a living portrait that has caused critics to wonder whether Shylock is merely a comic villain or the tragic victim of Christian cruelty. The story of the Jews in medieval Europe throws a good deal of light on the events of the play and provides us with the Shakespearean frame of reference which is necessary for an understanding of both the major themes and minor details which are the fabric of The Merchant of Venice. During th e entire Middle Ages, the Jewish people were alternately protected and persecuted by the temporal powers of whatever land they inhabited. Their experience in England is typical of their history in Christianized Europe. After the Norman Conquest in 10 66, Jewish people, fleeing from the persecutions of the French clergy, made their way to England. Economic possibilities were offered in the newly conquered country, and the Normans wanted the tribute money and the financial experience for making business transactions, which only the Jews could provide. It had been established by the Church long before that Christians were not to lend money at interest, for to do so would be a violation of the New Testament concept of charity. Restricted as they were from owning real property and keeping serfs, which were essential to the agrarian economy of the Middle Ages, more and more Jews became tradesmen and financiers. Although they were generally abused because of their religious differences, Jews w gere also frequently tolerated and invited into a country to stabilize its shaky financial structure.

During the two centuries following the Conquest, Jews continued to emigrate to England, usually in order to escape from overzealous crusaders. A liberal charter was granted them by Henry I (110035) in exchange for a percentage of their profits in all trade and moneylending transactions. The King became the heir of every Jew and took over his estate upon death. Consequently, moneylenders were forced to charge high interest rates, which increased as the King's demands grew. Thus, the Jew became the buff er for the King's extortions and the symbol of the hated usurer. He was, in effect, the King's scapegoat.

Religious persecution was added to the economic pressures on the Jews in England after Aquitaine became part of England's domain. At the coronation of Richard I (the Lionhearted), systematic massacres and immolations of Jews formed part of the people's coronation celebrations. By the end of the twelfth century, legal spoliation and extortion of the Jews in England matched that on the continent, only m ore openly. Richard, for example, required the registration of all Jewish moneylending businesses and had state records kept of all lending transactions. To this end, he herded all Jews into the larger cities where records were being kept. John Lackland, Richard's brother and successor, replenished some of his depleted funds by imprisoning or executing Jews on various charges in order to seize their properties. At the same time, he gave them protection in the city of Lincoln, where he established the Jews a çs the King's chattel (property, livestock), making it illegal for anyone to injure the King's Jews just as it was illegal to harm the King's hounds. (The Jew and the dog will be associated frequently in The Merchant of Venice.) By 1254, conditions were so bad that the Jewish people petitioned the King to allow them to leave the country. After some delay, they were finally ordered out by Edward I. By October of 1290, sixteen thousand Jews had left the country, sailing to Flanders, Germany, and Spain where they were alternately tolerated for their financial prowess, persecuted for their religious "stubbornness," and forced into conversion, slavery, and suicide. England did not see Jews again until the latter half of the sevent Meenth century, when the Puritan protector Cromwell allowed them to return.

It can be seen from Shakespeare's treatment of Shylock, from the allusions Shylock makes to the persecutions and humiliations suffered at the hands of Christians, that Shakespeare was familiar with the plight of the Jewish people in the Christian world, that he created an appropriate and accurate background for the character of Shylock, and that he did not find Antonio's abuse of Shylock inconsistent with the character of the perfect Renaissance gentleman. In fact, the final forced conversion of Shylock, from the Renaissance Christian point of view, was regarded as a kindness to the obstinate Jew, who had stubbornly refused, through the centuries, to accept Christ as the Messiah, to adopt the Christian faith, and thereby secure salvation in heaven, whi ¤ch Christ promised only to his followers. With Christ's life as an example, the only Christian thing to do was to follow the Gospel's precepts and convert the Jews.The Literary Background.

During the Jews' fourhundred year absence from England, legends from the continent helped to perpetuate English stereotypes of the Jews. It had become conventional in Europe to attribute unexplained deaths, plagues, and other disasters to Jewish hatr Ned for Christians and their desire for revenge against their persecutors.

Jews and devils were thought of as alteregos, and stories of ritual murders and poisoned wells grew into an extensive literature. In the Old English poem, Elene, written long before the Jews came to England, Jews were accused of concealing the true cross; Chaucer's tale of the Prioress charged a Jew with the murder of a nameless little boy because of his devotion to the Virgin, and the miracle plays of the late Middle Ages portrayed Old Testament figures as wicked and comic characters. By Shakespeare's boyhood, the character of Judas Iscariot was conventionalized as the embodiment of all that was evil. Judas had evolved as a lowcomic character, usually portrayed by an actor in a red wig, red beard, and long nose (as Shylock was played until well into the eighteenth century).The Judas would become the victim of playful beatings by other characters in the play, and members of the audience were allowto use him as a scapegoat.

In Tudor England, the Jew was purely a dramatic or lite rary figure, for there were few known Jews living in the country at the time. It is true, however, that the 1594 trial of Dr. Roderigo Lopez, a Portuguese Christian convert and physician to Queen Elizabeth who was accused of an attempt on her life, may have suggested the idea for Shakespeare's Shylock. But Lopez was already a convert and was involved in a plot which did not involve his Jewish heritage. Shylock is too much like the conventional Jew of English literature to resemble Lopez. Even so, considerable interest was aroused by the trial of Lopez, and the historical scholar John Palmer insists that antiSemitism was in fashion "when Shakespeare sat down to write "The Merchant of Venice.'" E.E. Stoll adds that Marlowe's play, The Jew of Malta (c. 1588), remained popular over a period of four years, and during the trial of Lopez between May and December, 1594, the play was performed twenty times. Marlowe's play featured the Jew Barabas who embodied "all the qualities which a persecuting majority commonly at tributed to its victims" and demonstrated that, in the theatre, antiSemitism was the popular view. Barabas in Marlowe's play is abused by the governor of Malta. Along with other rich Jews, he is required to give half his estate to pay tribute to the Turks. When Barabas refuses, he is deprived of his entire estate. From then on, he becomes the personification of evil and a statement of the essential greed, cruelty, ambition, and treachery of the stereotyped Jew. Partly out of revenge, partly out of his hatre õd from Christians, Barabas helps the Turks take Malta, then assists the governor of Malta in a counterplot against the Turks, which he fails of achieving because he accidentally falls into the boiling cauldron he has prepared for the Turks.

Shakespeare's Shylock has the same motives as Barabas. He admits his hatred of Christians in general and on one Christian in particular, Antonio, because of their illtreatment of Shylock's people and his own person. Like Barabas, Shylock is moved by the desire for general and particular revenge. However, he is not merely a conventional stage Jew or symbol of evil and hatred; Shylock is endowed with human qualities and is given specific motives for revenge. He has been spat upon, called dog, vilified for pursuing the only trade which the Christian world has left open to him; he has had his daughter"stolen" by a Christian, and for this he is expected to show mercy. As the conventional Jew, he remains staunch in his cruelty, just as Antonio, the epitome of Christian love, humility, charity, friendship, and forgiveness, willingly accepts his fate at the hands of his enemy. Antonio shows true Christian spirit in his submission to the injuries he must endure even to the point of death, while Shylock, like the vengeful God of the Old Testament, demands that the letter of the law be carried out.