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Gratiano
''The Merchant of Venice'' is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. A merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan provided by a Jewish moneylender, Shylock. Although classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is most remembered for its dramatic scenes, and it is best known for the character Shylock and his famous demand for a "pound of flesh" in retribution. The play contains two famous speeches, that of Shylock, "Hath not a Jew eyes?" on the subject of humanity, and that of Portia on " the quality of mercy". Debate exists on whether the play is anti-Semitic, with Shylock's insistence on his legal right to the pound of flesh being in opposition to Shylock's seemingly universal plea for the rights of all people suffering discrimination. Characters * Antonio – a prominent merchant of Venice in a melancholic mood. * Bassanio – Anton ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antonio (The Merchant Of Venice)
Antonio is the title character in Shakespeare's ''The Merchant of Venice''. An influential, powerful, and wealthy nobleman of Venice, he is a middle-aged man and a merchant by trade who has his financial interests tied up in overseas shipments when the play begins. He is kind, generous, and honest to Christians, and is loved and revered by all the Christians who know him, but not by the Jew Shylock, whom he himself scorns. Act 1 In sooth I know not why I am so sad. It wearies me, you say it wearies you; But how I caught it, found it, or came by it, What stuff ‘tis made of, whereof it is born, I am to learn And such a want-wit sadness makes of me That I have much ado to know myself. When we first see Antonio, commiserating with his friends Salanio and Salarino, he is pondering the unknown source of his depressive state His friends try to guess the origin and nature of his condition by questioning him. First, they inquire as to whether or not he is worried about his investm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jessica (The Merchant Of Venice)
Jessica is the daughter of Shylock, a Jewish moneylender, in William Shakespeare's ''The Merchant of Venice'' (). In the play, she elopes with Lorenzo, a penniless Christian, and a chest of her father's money, eventually ending up in Portia (The Merchant of Venice), Portia and Bassanio's household. In the play's dramatic structure, Jessica is a minor but pivotal role. Her actions motivate Shylock's vengeful insistence on his "pound of flesh" from Antonio (The Merchant of Venice), Antonio; her relationships with Lorenzo and Shylock serves as a mirror and contrast to Portia's with Bassanio and with her father; her conversion to Christianity is the end of Shylock's line's adherence to the Jewish faith. Literary critics have historically viewed the character negatively, highlighting her theft of her father's gold, her betrayal of his trust, and apparently selfish motivations and aimless behaviour. Since the end of the 20th century their views have been more moderate and nuanced, po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bassanio
Bassanio is a fictional character in Shakespeare's ''The Merchant of Venice ''Bassanio,'' the best friend of Antonio. He is a spendthrift who wasted all of his money in order to be seen as a respectable man. To regain his fortune, he is determined to marry Portia, a wealthy, intelligent heiress of Belmont. In order to ask for her hand in marriage, Bassanio and his best friend, Antonio enter into an agreement with the usurer Shylock. He is not the main character of the play, but his 73 lines compared to Antonio's 47 and Portia's 117 shows that he still plays an important role. Even though his actions do not have a large impact on the play, he is responsible for the driving force behind the plot. Role in the play In Act I, Scene I, Bassanio first makes an appearance while Antonio is complaining to his friends about him being sad. Antonio's friends continue to speculate why is he upset, and Antonio asks Bassanio to tell him of the secret love he is hiding. Bassanio explains tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portia (The Merchant Of Venice)
Portia is a female protagonist of William Shakespeare's ''The Merchant of Venice''. A rich, beautiful, intelligent heiress of Belmont, she is bound by the lottery set forth in her father's will, which gives potential suitors the chance to choose among three caskets. If he chooses the right casket, he wins Portia's hand in marriage. If he chooses the incorrect casket, he must leave and never woo any other woman in marriage. She is shown to think little of various foreign noblemen of similar rank who are most likely to seek her hand in marriage and still less of two suitors who seem to attempt her father's assigned task. Instead she favours a young but impoverished Venetian noble, Bassanio, who is also a soldier and a scholar. Bassanio goes on to choose the right casket. Portia is also fond of wordplay and proverbs, frequently quoting and coining them, which was considered a sign of wisdom and sharp wit in Elizabethan era. Some suggest that the character of Portia was based on Q ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First Quarto
The earliest texts of William Shakespeare's works were published during the 16th and 17th centuries in quarto or folio format. Folios are large, tall volumes; quartos are smaller, roughly half the size. The publications of the latter are usually abbreviated to Q1, Q2, etc., where the letter stands for "quarto" and the number for the first, second, or third edition published. Plays Eighteen of the 36 plays in the First Folio were printed in separate and individual editions prior to 1623. ''Pericles'' (1609) and ''The Two Noble Kinsmen'' (1634) also appeared separately before their inclusions in folio collections (the Shakespeare Third Folio and the second Beaumont and Fletcher folio, respectively). All of these were quarto editions, with two exceptions: ''The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York'', the first edition of ''Henry VI, Part 3'', was printed in octavo form in 1595, as was the 1611 edition of ''The most lamentable tragedy of Titus Andronicus''. In chronological order, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Will And Testament
A will or testament is a legal document that expresses a person's (testator) wishes as to how their property ( estate) is to be distributed after their death and as to which person ( executor) is to manage the property until its final distribution. For the distribution (devolution) of property not determined by a will, see inheritance and intestacy. Though it has at times been thought that a "will" historically applied only to real property while "testament" applied only to personal property (thus giving rise to the popular title of the document as "last will and testament"), the historical records show that the terms have been used interchangeably. Thus, the word "will" validly applies to both personal and real property. A will may also create a testamentary trust that is effective only after the death of the testator. History Throughout most of the world, the disposition of a dead person's estate has been a matter of social custom. According to Plutarch, the written will was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Spain
New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the Americas and having its capital in Mexico City. Its jurisdiction comprised a huge area that included what is now Mexico, the Western and Southwestern United States (from California to Louisiana and parts of Wyoming, but also Florida) in North America; Central America, the Caribbean, very northern parts of South America, and several territorial Pacific Ocean archipelagos. After the 1521 Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire, conqueror Hernán Cortés named the territory New Spain, and established the new capital, Mexico City, on the site of the Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Mexica (Aztec) Empire. Central Mexico became the base of expeditions of exploration and conquest, expanding the territory claimed by the Spanish Empire. With the polit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight. The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Paleolithic period, but takes its name from the Angles, a Germanic tribe deriving its name from the Anglia peninsula, who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in the 10th century and has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century. The English language, the Anglican Church, and Engli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antisemitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antisemitism has historically been manifested in many ways, ranging from expressions of hatred of or discrimination against individual Jews to organized pogroms by mobs, police forces, or genocide. Although the term did not come into common usage until the 19th century, it is also applied to previous and later anti-Jewish incidents. Notable instances of persecution include the Rhineland massacres preceding the First Crusade in 1096, the Edict of Expulsion from England in 1290, the 1348–1351 persecution of Jews during the Black Death, the massacres of Spanish Jews in 1391, the persecutions of the Spanish Inquisition, the expulsion from Spain in 1492, the Cossack massacres in Ukraine from 1648 to 1657, various anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pound (mass)
The pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in British imperial and United States customary systems of measurement. Various definitions have been used; the most common today is the international avoirdupois pound, which is legally defined as exactly , and which is divided into 16 avoirdupois ounces. The international standard symbol for the avoirdupois pound is lb; an alternative symbol is lbm (for most pound definitions), # ( chiefly in the U.S.), and or ″̶ (specifically for the apothecaries' pound). The unit is descended from the Roman (hence the abbreviation "lb"). The English word ''pound'' is cognate with, among others, German , Dutch , and Swedish . These units are historic and are no longer used (replaced by the metric system). Usage of the unqualified term ''pound'' reflects the historical conflation of mass and weight. This accounts for the modern distinguishing terms ''pound-mass'' and '' pound-force''. Etymology The word 'pound' and its cognates ultim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doge Of Venice
The Doge of Venice ( ; vec, Doxe de Venexia ; it, Doge di Venezia ; all derived from Latin ', "military leader"), sometimes translated as Duke (compare the Italian '), was the chief magistrate and leader of the Republic of Venice between 726 and 1797. Doges of Venice were elected for life by the Venetian nobility. The ''doge'' was neither a duke in the modern sense, nor the equivalent of a nobility, hereditary duke. The title "doge" was the title of the senior-most elected official of Republic of Venice, Venice and Republic of Genoa, Genoa; both cities were republics and elected doges. A doge was referred to variously by the titles "My Lord the Doge" ('), "Most Serene Prince" ('), and "Serene Highness, His Serenity" ('). History of the title Byzantine era The office of doge goes back to 697. The first historical Venetian doge, Orso Ipato, Ursus, led a revolt against the Byzantine Empire in 726, but was soon recognised as the () and (a honorific title derived from the Greek w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shakespeare's Heroines - Jessica
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an act ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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