Shylock: A Legend and Its Legacy

by John J. Gross

With brilliant historical perspective and insight, theater critic John Gross explores the complex and influential history that has given Shylock a life beyond the play and established him as a figure of world mythology.

Illuminating Shylock's evolution on the stage, his importance to writers and psychologists, and his enduring influence on society and culture, John Gross sheds as much light on our own shifting attitudes and beliefs as on the rich and disquieting figure Shakespeare created.

Genres: Shakespeare, History, Nonfiction, Drama

384 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1992

Reviews

[T. Tokunaga · Rating 3 out of 5]

【Shylock: A Legend and Its Legacy / John Gross / 1992, Simon & Schuster】

This book is made up of two parts: Part One, a critical analysis of Shylock, largely based on biblical reading. And Part Two and Three, Shylockipedia, which covers the history of performances and literary legacy each. I skipped the most of the third, because my brain couldn't endure the endless array of information, as if reading 'everything about Shylock up to 1970s.'

However, this book would still be a classic of Shakespearean criticism, for its solid basis of the Bible as a source of understanding the character, which is rather surprising to be out of the boom of 'Catholic Shakespeare.'

--It is only against this background [John's gospel causing anti-Semitism as a whole]that the reference to Shylock as a devil can be fully understood. (Chapter 1, P26)

It's also largely grounded in the humanist tradition of Shakespeare criticism, which can be associated with the craftsmanship of Shakespeare reading professionals.

--But the community [of Jewish people in Venice] also produced doctors, poets, musicians and craftsmen, and humanists versed in Latin and Italian - for there were fat more cultural contacts between Christians and Jews than those high walls might lead one to suppose. (Chapter 2, P38)

This humanism also shows some aspects of its humanitarianism supporting this 'mild' book (not in the sense 'lukewarm' or 'insufficient.'

--On the contrary, Shylock is using slavery as a precedent to justify his own claim. In a slave-owing society, why shouldn't he have the right to purchase a life himself? (Chapter 6, P85)

[Muaz Jalil · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love John Gross. This book is a fascinating exploration of Shylock, the character, and how he was played and interpreted in different epochs in line with the prevalent norms. Few interesting points:

1. Antonio and Shylock represent two extreme versions of economic man. A fantasy that you could be a successful entrepreneur, socially benevolent without being competitive and assertive. At the same time, Shylock is the predator conferring good on no one.
2. How actor Charles Macklin performed Shylock by taking the method acting route. He visited Jewish quarters. He played in Drury Lane, next to the current LSE.
3. Another famous actor was Edmund Kean. Who later hired Junius Booth, who left his family and escaped to America with a flower girl. They had ten children; one was Edwin Booth, who outshone Junius as an actor, and another, Wilkes Booth, who outshone both as a historical figure (Lincoln)
4. Many thought Shylock should be interpreted in line with Shakespeare's thoughts. This is known as an intentional fallacy. Even famous professors like Edgar Stoll made similar mistakes.
5. There is a Marxist interpretation of Shylock along the traditional capitalist line.
6. The Holocaust has further augmented how you view Shylock
7. The critical summary or contraction in Merchant of Venice was whether Shylock was a villain of a Melodrama or a hero of a tragedy?

I feel the book exemplified how history and context shape our engagement with a book and a character, and the mark of a great book or character is the ability to be reinterpreted again and again with changing epoch

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Altogether a good, in-depth source of information about the history of Shylock. I disagree with Gross in parts—for example, I don’t hate modernized productions of Shakespeare—and I wish that he had been more personal in his criticism (since that’s part of what interests me about the character), but his work still gave me many different directions for my own research. For that, I’m grateful.

[Gavriella Michaelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating look at a very upsetting character.

[Marin Hanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

helpful information but bro get an editor

[Arthur · Rating 2 out of 5]

Note: The author's name is John Gross, not Joe Gross.

Four hundred years in the life of one of Shakespeare’s most fascinating, most problematic characters. There is a Shylock on the stage and a Shylock in the study; these streams of interpretation, equally fascinating, take independent courses through history, occasionally flowing together to enrich each other. Add to these the Shylock of anti-Semitic tracts and popular journalism and you begin to realize how pervasive this character is in our culture, and what a touchstone he has become when discussion turns to matters of race, morality, and the history of 20th-century Europe.

John Gross tries to cover it all. He first outlines the sources of Shakespeare’s Jew of Venice and then goes on to survey performance history and critical analysis. You won’t find your college production mentioned here, but Gross’s ambition seems to have been to give at least a brief notice of every notable performance throughout the world since the 18th century. We hear about Shylocks played in French, German, Italian, Russian, even Japanese and Hindi, but most attention, of course, is given to the crucial interpretations within the English theater tradition, those of Macklin, Kean, Macready, Irving, Gielgud, and Olivier, among others. Gross also summarizes the critical tradition, beginning in the early 1700s with Nicholas Rowe and going on through Hazlitt, Heine, E.E. Stoll, Granville-Barker, Wilson Knight, Kermode--the roster is very long. Freud wrote about the three caskets, but not about Shylock; not to worry, there were plenty of other psychoanalysts who picked up the slack.

Gross everywhere aims for breadth rather than depth, which leads to a lot of repetition, since every interpretation of Shylock, once stripped of its nuance, seems reducible to one of three types. I wish Gross had omitted his discussion of half-a-dozen minor performances in favor of longer expositions of the crucial ones, such as Kean’s and Irving’s. I would have liked to read more about the research and preparation of each actor; the details of production and costuming; the way that the interpretation of Shylock influenced the presentation of the other characters; the audience reception.

One thing that comes across in these pages is how ephemeral the art of acting is; for every actor before the advent of the talkies, we must rely on the spectators’ and actors’ notoriously subjective and unreliable written descriptions of productions and performances.

[Bill FromPA · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first part of John Gross’ Shylock: A Legend and Its Legacy looks at the character on a scene-by-scene basis and examines the contemporary and historic elements that make up its various components (Judaism, usury, conversion). Part two looks at the character on stage and, to a lesser extent, in literary criticism, from 1700 through 1939 in England and America. The third and last part considers the character as a worldwide phenomenon, Shylock as a “citizen of the world” and brings the story up to the present day (early 1990s).
“Legend” seems a bit of an exaggeration; Shylock is a literary character, albeit one of a certain prominence due to being the only explicitly Jewish character in the work of the playwright many consider the world’s greatest. I think similar books could be written about almost any of the main characters in Shakespeare’s most popular plays, though the range of interpretations may not have been quite as wide over time as in the present case.
I found Gross’ study to be thoroughly engrossing (groan) and well-researched, although in concentrating on this single character he distorts the significance and meanings of the play in which he appears. In considering all subsequent literary Jews through the early 20th century as either versions of or responses to the character of Shylock, he begins to give the impression of one suffering under an idée fixe rather than a literary historian.
Nevertheless anybody familiar with The Merchant of Venice will find much to enjoy and think about here. Gross’ descriptions of various actors and productions are evocative; we get Shylock in German, French, Polish, Yiddish, Hebrew, Arabic, and Japanese (The Strange Affair of the Flesh of the Bosom). Those made curious or provoked by Ron Rosenbaum’s citation in The Shakespeare Wars that Merchant was the most frequently produced play in the Third Reich will find more on Nazi attitudes toward Shylock (and the “racially” inconvenient marriage of his daughter). On the whole the book provides an interesting cross-section of 400 years of history approached from an unusual perspective.

[Suri Nath · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps one of the best analyses of Shylock. This certainly helps all who want to play the role of Shylock, the toughest and most complex character created by Shakespeare. Want to know why? Read this book.

[Kyla Mora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comprehensive, well-researched. A wide, suitably deep consideration of the influence of a powerful Shakespearian character. Highly useful in writing my thesis -- a great book!

[Tasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and helpful read while I'm teaching Merchant.

[Trudy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very erudite but flows easily. Great book for Shakespeare and history lovers.

[Eric_W]

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