University of Virginia professor Paul Cantor, curator of the Shakespeare and Politics website (thegreatthinker..., in the first of three lectures on The Merchant of Venice.
God forbid the fragile students should be offended by something written hundreds of years ago, best to pretend it doesn't exist. Go read something else that's more hugs and puppies. University is not about learning new things or open mindedness, it's about safe spaces.
Ok so now Shylock is a victim not a villain? Are we changing history, literature, and common sense because of the jewish lobby in the US and Europe? What next to blame Muslims for Antonio’s suffering and Shylock predatory behavior?
Paul is a nonpareil. He backgrounds the play so well that we are able to appreciate not only the finished edifice but every brick in the block, and every block in the building. Money is the predominant meme that permeates the warp and the woof of the text. Thank you, professor, for entertaining both the teachers and the taught, and also those who were lounging on the lawn because they couldn't stand the bad breath of the rant from the podium in the classroom. How old are you, bwana ? Going by the bravura of the presentation, you sound ageless.
The typical American Jew sits in shul and also thinks about his merchandise. C’est la meme chose. The Merchant of Venice ought to be taught in every school…… the narrowing of the American mind grows ever narrower. Thank you Professor Paul Cantor ….. Shakespeare scholar el supremo. Miss Jenny (music teacher in exile in Manhattan).
@@JohnBrack-xi6yg re your otiose quasi Yiddish comment. Being white and Jewish and a communist living through the worst years of apartheid SA….. incarcerated many times. 71 years old and still an activist.
I could be wrong but I read that Mr.Abraham is from an Assyrian family on his father's side.His mother was Italian.His family were members of the Syriac Orthodox Church.
W.r.t. the movie, it opens, for example, with misleading claims about Jews and usury. Yes, the Catholic Church forbade usury for moral reasons as an unjust and exploitative practice (think loan sharks and pawnbrokers, but the principle that makes them unsavory, not the degree of exploitation). But the Jews also forbade usury, but only among Jews. According to Talmudic law, Gentiles could be subjected to usury. Also, in response to the claim that antisemitism was a "fact of [...] life", it is worth mentioning that Poland was exceptionally tolerant in the 16th century (some have criticized it as excessive). Jews were relieved of being immediate subjects of anyone but the Crown and so had privileges that were not available to Gentile peasants and burghers. W.r.t. the lecture, very interesting characterization of Venetian virtue as materialistic polity.
Love watching your series of classes on Shakespeare and Politics. One minor error, F. Murray Abraham isn't, as you stated, Jewish. All the best, Howard, New York City
Every time he says "Shake-Speare" he should say "Sir Francis Bacon," as there never was a person alive named Shakespeare. "Shake-speare" as the first and second folio of "Shake-Speare Plays" was always written with a hyphen. And in the folios it lists the actor, William Shakspere (pronounced "Shack-Spur" ) with the correct spelling as his will shows, since they were first published 7 years after the death of the actor. There was never a person alive named William Shakespeare. Oh course Sir Francis Bacon had been to Venice many times and was fluent in most of the language new and old of Europe at the time.
Not like it matters really. So what if there never was a guy named Shakespeare that wrote plays during the reign of Elizabeth? We have his/their plays, which is all that matters.
You are attempting to use modern phonics to read a 16th Century name. An "e" at the end did not modify the preceding vowel sound back then. And if Bacon went to Italy so many times (there's no evidence that he did, by the way), why did he get so many things wrong about the place? Venice had an elected doge, not a duke, and the doge did not decide legal cases. The trail of Antonio, by the way, was a farce which a lawyer like Bacon would never have written. Oh, and not one, but TWO plays set in Venice and no mention of canals? What about Shylock being out and about after dark, when Venitian Jews had a curfew? It never ceases to amaze me how ignorant you people are about history AND about Shakespeare.
16th and 17th century spelling in all major European languages (the ones I know sth about) was uncertain, to say the least (Cervantes-Cerbantes, Shakspear-Shakespeare), that does not prove a thing. And now that we're at it, why Bacon? why not Marlowe, or the Earl of Oxford, or Anthony Sherley...? There's a long list of candidates, all of them similarly unfounded ....
Have you read Bacon’s “New Organon,” or his “New Atlantis”? If they are worth reading in any way, it’s not because of their use of language. I love Bacon as a philosopher but his prose is ugly af.
Quite worthwhile. But I recommend however, when reading text Mr. Cantor slow down and savor the lines more sumptuously. These are poetic dramas, first & foremost, not just illustrations of social issues and theatrical history.
Cantor hits all the right notes in this lecture, tho one must wonder if it is consistent with politics. Well, there arae three lectures on the play, and even so it's a really good lecture.
One thing about Shakespeare is that his stories are imminently true. Whether they are fact or fiction, one reason they endure is because they contain truths. Shylock is the quintessential Jew.
Imagine that. A play about a loan shark who comes from a weird tribe of loan sharks would offend people from that weird tribe or loan sharks, and so they used their loan shark influence to get it banned.
@@shivangipathak6800 Yeah, it's a regular laugh riot. I especially like the way the spoiled daughter, with her boyfriend, robs her father, squanders all the proceeds of the theft, then decides she's unhappy in the relationship.
@@jamesduggan7200 Right...but I literally pity Shylock I mean he isn't that bad ... Just doing what people of 21st century would do without any second thought
@@shivangipathak6800 The traditional definition of comedy includes a wedding, and although there are three couples in the play there is no wedding. True, Antionio avoids death, a traditional earmark of tragedy, there is nothing funny about what happens to Shylock. The only funny scenes in the play are Portia's descriptions of her greedy suitors. And altho a director might find a way to play for laughs the cask choosing scene or the ring betrayals, it's most definitely not a comedy.
