Ebook197 pages4 hours
Shylock Is Shakespeare
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
Shylock, the Jewish moneylender in The Merchant of Venice who famously demands a pound of flesh as security for a loan to his antisemitic tormentors, is one of Shakespeare’s most complex and idiosyncratic characters. With his unsettling eloquence and his varying voices of protest, play, rage, and refusal, Shylock remains a source of perennial fascination. What explains the strange and enduring force of this character, so unlike that of any other in Shakespeare’s plays? Kenneth Gross posits that the figure of Shylock is so powerful because he is the voice of Shakespeare himself.
Marvelously speculative and articulate, Gross’s book argues that Shylock is a breakthrough for Shakespeare the playwright, an early realization of the Bard’s power to create dramatic voices that speak for hidden, unconscious, even inhuman impulses—characters larger than the plays that contain them and ready to escape the author’s control. Shylock is also a mask for Shakespeare’s own need, rage, vulnerability, and generosity, giving form to Shakespeare’s ambition as an author and his uncertain bond with the audience. Gross’s vision of Shylock as Shakespeare’s covert double leads to a probing analysis of the character’s peculiar isolation, ambivalence, opacity, and dark humor. Addressing the broader resonance of Shylock, both historical and artistic, Gross examines the character’s hold on later readers and writers, including Heinrich Heine and Philip Roth, suggesting that Shylock mirrors the ambiguous states of Jewishness in modernity.
A bravura critical performance, Shylock Is Shakespeare will fascinate readers with its range of reference, its union of rigor and play, and its conjectural—even fictive—means of coming to terms with the question of Shylock, ultimately taking readers to the very heart of Shakespeare’s humanizing genius.
Marvelously speculative and articulate, Gross’s book argues that Shylock is a breakthrough for Shakespeare the playwright, an early realization of the Bard’s power to create dramatic voices that speak for hidden, unconscious, even inhuman impulses—characters larger than the plays that contain them and ready to escape the author’s control. Shylock is also a mask for Shakespeare’s own need, rage, vulnerability, and generosity, giving form to Shakespeare’s ambition as an author and his uncertain bond with the audience. Gross’s vision of Shylock as Shakespeare’s covert double leads to a probing analysis of the character’s peculiar isolation, ambivalence, opacity, and dark humor. Addressing the broader resonance of Shylock, both historical and artistic, Gross examines the character’s hold on later readers and writers, including Heinrich Heine and Philip Roth, suggesting that Shylock mirrors the ambiguous states of Jewishness in modernity.
A bravura critical performance, Shylock Is Shakespeare will fascinate readers with its range of reference, its union of rigor and play, and its conjectural—even fictive—means of coming to terms with the question of Shylock, ultimately taking readers to the very heart of Shakespeare’s humanizing genius.
Read more from Kenneth Gross
Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Dangerous Children: On Seven Novels and a Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Shylock Is Shakespeare
Related ebooks
Tolstoy on Shakespeare: A Critical Essay on Shakespeare Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDouble Vision: Moral Philosophy and Shakespearean Drama Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShakespeare's Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Study Guide for Bertolt Brecht's "Man Equals Man" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShakespeare's Roman Trilogy: The Twilight of the Ancient World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTHE ART OF BIOGRAPHY Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNotes to Shakespeare's Comedies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStudy Guide to The Major Plays of Eugene O'Neill Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDante's Inferno, a New Translation in Terza Rima Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Widow's Tears: 'She be my guide, and hers the praise of these, My worthy undertakings'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYerma: Full Text and Introduction (NHB Drama Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsText and Supertext in Ibsen’s Drama Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Anonymous's "Everyman" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMuch Ado About Nothing: A Comedy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sleeping-Car: A Farce Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Taming of the Shrew (Annotated by Henry N. Hudson with an Introduction by Charles Harold Herford) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Othello (Annotated by Henry N. Hudson with an Introduction by Charles Harold Herford) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Awakening Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCharacters of Shakespeare's Plays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKing Lear Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDid Hamlet Love Ophelia?: and Other Thoughts on the Play Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Taming of the Shrew Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Quick Guide to "The Birthday Party" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShakespeare on Love Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrom Auden To Yeats: Critical Analysis of 30 Selected Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Lady from the Sea (1888) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Study Guide for Wallace Stevens 's "Anecdote of the Jar" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Theory of the Theatre, and Other Principles of Dramatic Criticism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Literary Criticism For You
Verity: by Colleen Hoover | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Seduction: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The 48 Laws of Power: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/512 Rules For Life: by Jordan Peterson | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Letters to a Young Poet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One Hundred Years of Solitude: A Novel by Gabriel Garcia Márquez | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret History: by Donna Tartt | Conversation Starters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Court of Thorns and Roses: A Novel by Sarah J. Maas | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5As I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Man's Search for Meaning: by Viktor E. Frankl | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Power of Habit: by Charles Duhigg | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Behold a Pale Horse: by William Cooper | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5SUMMARY Of The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in Healthy Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago: The Authorized Abridgement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.by Brené Brown | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Just Kids: A National Book Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain | Conversation Starters Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Book of Virtues Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Circe: by Madeline Miller | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lincoln Lawyer: A Mysterious Profile Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Reviews for Shylock Is Shakespeare
Rating: 3.6 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
5 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A tad self-indulgent at times, but an interesting, satisfying read nonetheless. Worth a look.
Book preview
Shylock Is Shakespeare - Kenneth Gross
Enjoying the preview?
Page 1 of 1