Year 11 Students ...
Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to find the University library. And, once you've found it, to find the computers and CD-ROMS available within. First, go to BIBSYS and get on-line. Find one secondary source for Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. Then, find out the MLA CD-ROM and find one article on Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. This is not a 'formal' assignment, but it might be good practice for those of you going on for hovedfag. Let me know what you find!
1. How are the marriage and trial plots similar? Can they be paralelled? Explain.
2. How can characters like Antonio and Bassanio, Salerio and Solanio, etc., claim that love and money are compatible? In any case, why do they do so throughout the text?
3.
...to you Antonio
I owe the most in money and in love,
And from your
love I have a warranty
To unburthen all my plots and purposes
How to get
clear of all the debts I owe.
....
Oh my Antonio, had I but the means
To hold a rival place with one of them,
I have a mind presages me such
thrift
That I should questionless be fortunate.
(I.ii.130-34,
173-76)
Do a close-reading of these lines and then relate it to a theme in the play as a whole. How are these lines symptomatic of attitudes within the play and of this character in particular?
4. How is xenophobia expressed in this play and how is the problem eventually resolved? Is the characterization of Shylock a demonstration of anti-semitism, per se, or of xenophobia more generally?
5. Why is the idea of mercy so important in this text? Who is it most important to and why? (Notice, in particular, who talks about it most.)
6. Is Jessica a 'good' character? That is, do you think she is commendable or reprehensible. Why?
7. Why do the women, Nerissa and Portia, play the ring trick at the end of the play? What is their purpose and what do they achieve?
8.
Ho no, no, no, no: my meaning in saying he is a good man, is to have you
understand me that he is sufficient,--yet his means are in supposition: he hath
an argosy bound to Tripolis, another to the Indies, I understand moreover upon
the Rialto, he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England, and other ventures
he hath squand'red abroad,--but ships are but boards, sailors but men, there be
land-rats, and water-rats, water- thieves, and land-thieves, (I mean pirates),
and then there is the peril of waters, winds, and rocks: the man is
notwithstanding sufficient,--three thousand ducats,--I think I may take his
bond. ....
I will be assur'd I may: and that I may be assured, I
will
bethink me... (I.iii.13-24, 26-27)
Do a close reading of this passage and then relate it to a theme we have discussed in class. Again, think about its location in the play and who is speaking.
9. What is the difference between Jewish fiscalism and Christian mercantilism? Talk about how these two ideals are set up in the text and how they are worked out through the ending. (You might also address this as a social class as well as religious issue.)
10. How is music used in this play? It comes up on several occassions: most notably, when Bassanio is choosing his casket and in the final scene at Belmont. Why?
