LITERATURE MATTERS 10

How happy did it make Shakespeare?

If critics have commented about how happy it made Shakespeare to save 'the creatures of the sun' (bassanio, Gratiano and co..) from something as real as the "vile" old Shylock, then they were both right and wrong in doing so. For one, even if Shylock and his drastically macbre demand of three pounds of flesh for a payment of loan that had gone beyond its due, was something that was 'really' vile, it does in no way provide for any sort of sympathy for a jew ragging Bassanio and his company. On the other hand, it is indeed true that it was finally left to shakespeare to come to the aid of these heroes of the time by way of Portia and her smart lawyering.

They(Bassanio and company) had to be saved from the consequence of their own earlier mistreatment of Shylock, for the appeasement of a crowd; the majority of whom were the Bassanios of the period in flesh and blood. Shakespeare, more than anything, needed a smart way to turn the tables on Shylock who had by all means legal cornered the 'righteous' ones. Then comes the smart argument that outdid the vile Shylock, who it seems, in his intention to be vile, forgot being smart for a while, and paid the price.

The Jew of the time was considered not just mean but also cunning( read smart). More than the fact that he saved Bassanio and Co from the vile Shylock, the fact that he helped them outdo the mean jew in his own department of 'cunning' must have given Shakespeare (and as a consequence his audience) a lot to celebrate. It is not Shylock's defeat, but the manner in which it was achieved that the anti-semetic audience of Shakespeare loved.