《威尼斯商人》中人的本性的双重性 .docVIP

【标题】《威尼斯商人》中人的本性的双重性 【作者】邱建强 【关键词】人性双重性；种族歧视；基督徒；钱 【指导老师】张亚军 卢静 【专业】英语 【正文】I. IntroductionThe Merchant of Venice is a comedy that has produced the greatest critical controversy for years. Its popularity up to now has unquestionably centered on the confrontation between Shylock the Jew and Antonio the Christian, Portia and Bassanio. But how that conflict has been interpreted has varied enormously, with the different readings bringing issues of gender, class and, most especially, race starkly to the foreground.Undoubtedly the central issue in the commentary on The Merchant of Venice has been the debate over Shakespeare’s intent in the play. One school of critics has claimed that the drama is allegorical and depicts, in the courtroom victory of Portia and the Christians over Shylock the Jew, the triumph of mercy over justice, New Testament dispensation over Judaic law, or love’s wealth over the quest for material possessions. Another substantial group of commentators, sensing ambiguities and uncertainties in the play’s apparent endorsement of Christian principles, has contended that Shakespeare was actually condemning the Venice, including the ethereal Portia, for their moral duplicity and religious insincerity.Essentially, four issues dominated nineteenth-century commentary on The Merchant or Venice: analysis of the play’s structure and unifying idea; discussion of Shylock’s Jewishness and its importance to Shakespeare’s design; interpretation of the final act, including the ring episode, and its relation to preceding events in the drama; and a determination of the play’s classification.Nineteenth-century commentators on The Merchant of Venice generally did not regard the apparently inappropriate Act V and the business of the rings as superfluous to Shakespeare’s design, but saw it as intimately related to the comic structure of the play.A review of the critical history of The Merchant of Venice demonstrates that no one answer to the numerous questions