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The New York Times > Magazine > Shakespeare's Leap
Stephen Greenblatt gives us a glimpse into his new critical biography of Shakespeare. Greenblatt discusses how Shakespeare at once incited laughter at Shylock and made his audience self conscious about that laughter. In an England where all Jews had been expelled 300 years earlier and Jews were stock figures of malevolence, this was both an innovation and an accomplishment. As an antecedant to the play, Greenblatt cites the notorious execution of the Queen's physician, Ruy Lopez, born Jewish and condemned for treason. Greenblatt argues that in the fascination and repulsion that Shakespeare felt at the mob's reaction to Lopez's dying words, the Merchant of Venice was born.
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