Shylock

one of the principal characters in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. He is a Jew who loans Antonio three thousand ducats on condition that, if it is not paid within three months, the forfeit shall be a pound of the debtor's flesh cut off where Shylock shall choose. Antonio is unable to pay the debt, and the Jew is about to take the forfeit, when Portia, representing a young lawyer, saves Antonio's life and defeats the purpose of the Jew by reminding him that his life is lost if he sheds a drop of Christian blood or takes more or less than the pound of flesh which is lawfully his. Various interpretations of the character of Shylock have been presented by critics and more especially by actors. Until the time of Charles Macklin, an English actor of the eighteenth century, the part was of no real importance on the stage, but was made grotesque by tricks and buffoonery. Macklin gave the role the dignity of a tragedy, representing Shylock as a mercenary, revengeful, bloodthirsty, and inhuman wretch. This is perhaps the most natural feeling to one who reads the play for the first time. Edmund Kean in 1814 first played the part in a way to arouse sympathy with Shylock. Since that time, the majority of commentators have come to agree that Shakespeare intended to picture Shylock as "the representative of a wronged and persecuted race." It is of interest in this connection to note the interpretation of Shylock's character by the Jews themselves. Rabbi Lewinthal says:

This is the wail of the Jew uttered for the centuries. This is the cry that went up from Egypt, from the Roman amphitheater, from the dungeons of the Spanish Inquisition. We hear its echo all through the Dark Ages; and the genius of Shakespeare voiced it as it had never been voiced before--or since. . . . Shylock is a man more sinned against than sinning, whom the inhumanity of the whole world has made inhuman. Long brooding over the shameful treatment of his people has marred his character and dried up the founts of tenderness in his bosom.