LibGuides: Shakespeare's Tragedies: Prof. Giordano ENG 302: Databases and Articles

Overviews of the Play

The Merchant of Venice
From Shakespeare Criticism
The Merchant of Venice: Overview
From. Critical Companion to William Shakespeare: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work.
Key Passages in The Merchant of Venice
From: The Merchant of Venice, Bloom's Shakespeare Through the Ages

Literary Databases with Critical Analysis

Search these databases for scholarly (peer-reviewed) articles and reviews of Shakespeare's tragedies. Use advanced search to narrow your focus.

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
A collection of peer-reviewed journals, magazines, reports, monographs, conference proceedings and government documents. Topics covered include biology, chemistry, engineering, physics, psychology, religion, & theology and more.
Bloom's Literary Reference This link opens in a new window
This resource contains more than 20,000 critical essays from over 500 literary journals and 2,300 scholarly and critical books, including 700 titles published by Bloom's Literary Criticism and Facts On File. Also included in the database: hundreds of streaming videos and more than 13,000 biographies, 45,000 character entries, and 5,000 synopses of literary works.
Dictionary of Literary Biography This link opens in a new window
Dictionary of Literary Biography Complete Online provides more than 16,000 biographical and critical essays on the lives, works, and careers of the world's most influential literary figures from all eras and genres.
Gale eBooks (formerly Gale Virtual Reference Library) This link opens in a new window
Check out Shakespeare for Students under the Literature category.
Humanities Source This link opens in a new window
As the most comprehensive resource available in its field, Humanities Source provides full text—plus abstracts and bibliographic indexing—for the most noted scholarly sources in the humanities. Including feature articles, interviews, obituaries, bibliographies, original works of fiction, book reviews, and reviews of ballets, dance programs, motion pictures, musicals, operas, plays, and much more,
JSTOR Arts & Sciences I Current Collection This link opens in a new window
Electronic access to back issues of scholarly journals across the disciplines.
Gale Literature (formerly Literary Sources) This link opens in a new window
Search Literature Resource Center, Literature Criticism Online and Twayne's Author Series, Scribner Writer Series and Lit Finder through this one interface.
Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
Includes criticism, biographies, bibliographies, work overviews and explications, Web sites, periodical articles, compare and contrast pages, full-text author's works, and reading lists.
MagillOnLiterature Plus This link opens in a new window
Overviews of characters, plot analysis, themes and meanings.
Project Muse This link opens in a new window
Online scholarly journals covering literature & criticism, history & performing arts, cultural studies, political science.

Scholarly Articles About The Merchant of Venice

These articles focus on Shylock. Use the databases to find other articles about the play.

Shylock and Slaves: Owing and Owning in the Merchant of Venice
"This essay revisits the question of why Shylock chooses flesh over money, in order to show that his decision is neither fiscally irrational nor driven by personal vendetta."
Antonio and Shylock
In the following essay, Green outlines similarities between the characters of Antonio and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.
Green, Andrew. "Antonio and Shylock." English Review 13.3 (Feb. 2003): 38-41. Rpt. in Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. Michelle Lee. Vol. 107. Detroit: Gale, 2007. Literature Resource Center. Web. 28 June 2011.
Shakespeare and Shylock
Maccoby describes The Merchant of Venice as a drama that embraces "antisemitism on a profound theological level," concentrating on the figure of Shylock as a scapegoat for any religious doctrine that deviates from Shakespeare's own brand of Christian orthodoxy.
Maccoby, Hyam. "Shakespeare and Shylock." Antisemitism and Modernity: Innovation and Continuity. London: Routledge, 2006. 97-107. Rpt. in Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. Michelle Lee. Vol. 123. Detroit: Gale, 2009.
Avoiding Tragedy in The Merchant of Venice
Kottman contends that Shakespeare posed a central ethical dilemma for audiences of The Merchant of Venice.
Kottman, Paul A. "Avoiding Tragedy in The Merchant of Venice." Journal of Cultural and Religious Theory 8.3 (Fall 2007): 53-65. Rpt. in Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. Michelle Lee. Vol. 123. Detroit: Gale, 2009. Literature Resource Center. Web. 28 June 2011.
Shylock's Humanity
"While the distinction of the Law and Christian mercy is made emphatically by the play, the distinction between Jew and Christian is blurred by the behavior of the actual Christians."
Cooper, John R. "Shylock's Humanity." Shakespeare Quarterly 21.2 (1970): 117-24. JSTOR. Web. 28 June 2011.
Shakespeare, the Jews, and The Merchant of Venice
Is the character Shylock villaneous, comedic or tragic?
Bronstein, Herbert. "Shakespeare, the Jews and The Merchant of Venic." Shakepeare Quarterly 20.1 (1969): 3-10. JSTOR. Web. 28 June 2011.
The Bard, the Black and the Jew
Young minimizes the racial aspect of the Christians' treatment of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, instead focusing on Shakespeare's ironic commentary of human beings--Christian and Jew alike--who lack the capacity to extend mercy to one another. Young, R. V. "The Bard, the Black, the Jew." First Things 141 (Mar. 2004): 22-28. Rpt. in Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. Michelle Lee. Vol. 97. Detroit: Gale, 2006. Literature Resource Center. Web. 28 June 2011.

Online Scholarly Articles

A Second Daniel: The Jew and the "True Jew" in The Merchant of Venice
Thomas H. LuxonEarly Modern Literary Studies 4.3 (January, 1999): 3.1-37
The Merchant Formerly Known as Jew[1]: Redefining the Rhetoric of Merchantry in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice
Jennifer Rich, Early Modern Literary Studies 13.3 (January, 2008) 2.1-19

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