The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare: what it’s like, who it’s for

Name: The Merchant of Venice
Author: William Shakespeare

A Venetian moneylender demands a pound of flesh, and a clever heiress argues the case. Shakespeare's tightest comedy about money, prejudice and the price of a promise. The play moves with courtroom tension and quick wit, but an uneasy current runs under the jokes and lyrical speeches.

Feels like unease and grief. About memory and love.

Who it’s for

You may enjoy it if you like sharp dialogue, moral arguments and comedy that leaves a bitter aftertaste. The Elizabethan language and the play's casual antisemitism can make stretches hard going for modern readers.

Why read it

It gives you a tense, funny and troubling look at money, prejudice and promises, with speeches that stay in the mind.

Pages from the book

The moment an insult becomes a case for revenge.

He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.

Mercy is the one thing power cannot demand.

The quality of mercy is not strain’d,It droppeth as the gentle rain from heavenUpon the place beneath: it is twice blest;It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:’Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomesThe throned monarch better than his crown;His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,The attribute to awe and majesty,Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;But mercy is above this sceptred sway;It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,It is an attribute to God himself;

A goodbye written to be repeated to someone else.

But little: I am arm’d and well prepared.Give me your hand, Bassanio: fare you well!Grieve not that I am fallen to this for you;For herein Fortune shows herself more kindThan is her custom: it is still her useTo let the wretched man outlive his wealth,To view with hollow eye and wrinkled browAn age of poverty; from which lingering penanceOf such misery doth she cut me off.Commend me to your honourable wife:Tell her the process of Antonio’s end;Say how I loved you, speak me fair in death;And, when the tale is told, bid her be judgeWhether Bassanio had not once a love.

More passages from The Merchant of Venice

William Shakespeare.Jews were expelled from England in 1290 and not formally readmitted until 1656, so Shakespeare almost certainly never met a practising Jew.

Books that feel like this

Sonnets from the Portuguese

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1850

Also love and grief.

Oedipus Rex

Sophocles, -429

Also memory.

The Odyssey

Homer, -800

The first great story about a journey home — and every stop along the way is a good reason to give up.

Frankenstein

Mary Shelley, 1818

Also grief.

The Importance of Being Earnest

Oscar Wilde, 1895

Two friends invent imaginary relatives to escape their obligations, and their inventions collide in one country house full of people who talk in epigrams.

A Doll's House

Henrik Ibsen, 1879

Also unease.

All books like The Merchant of Venice

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Questions readers ask

Is The Merchant of Venice for me?: You may enjoy it if you like sharp dialogue, moral arguments and comedy that leaves a bitter aftertaste. The Elizabethan language and the play's casual antisemitism can make stretches hard going for modern readers.
What is The Merchant of Venice like?: The play moves with courtroom tension and quick wit, but an uneasy current runs under the jokes and lyrical speeches. Feels like unease and grief. About memory and love.
What should I read after The Merchant of Venice?: If you liked The Merchant of Venice, try Sonnets from the Portuguese (Elizabeth Barrett Browning), Oedipus Rex (Sophocles) and The Odyssey (Homer).

A taste of the feed

What it costs to hand someone the ashes of your grief.
I lift my heavy heart up solemnly, As once Electra her sepulchral urn, And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see What a great heap of grief lay hid in me, And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scorn Could tread them out to darkness utterly, It might be well perhaps. But if instead Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow The grey dust up—those laurels on thine head, O my Beloved, will not shield thee so, That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred The hair beneath. Stand further off then! Go.
Sonnets from the Portuguese · Elizabeth Barrett Browning
What stays unforgiven when a crime becomes the price of peace?
My lot be still to lead The life of innocence and fly Irreverence in word or deed, To follow still those laws ordained on high Whose birthplace is the bright ethereal sky. No mortal birth they own, Olympus their progenitor alone: Ne’er shall they slumber in oblivion cold, The god in them is strong and grows not old.
Oedipus Rex · Sophocles
What the greatest of the Greek heroes would trade for a day of paid labour.
“I spake; Achilles quickly answered me:— ‘Noble Ulysses, speak not thus of death, As if thou couldst console me. I would be A laborer on earth, and serve for hire Some man of mean estate, who makes scant cheer, Rather than reign o’er all who have gone down To death. Speak rather of my noble son, Whether or not he yet has joined the wars To fight among the foremost of the host.
The Odyssey · Homer
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