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One would have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to recognize that Shakespeare's grand, equivocal comedy The Merchant of Venice is nevertheless a profoundly anti-Semetic work.

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Shylock is an anti-Barabas, turned inward, as much a deep psyche as Barabas is a cartoon.  Shakespeare's imitations of Barabas, Aaron the Moor and Richard III, do homage to Marlow, but Shylock exposes Barabas as a mere caricature, however brilliant and ferocious.  "I'll show you the Jew," Shakespeare says in reply to Marlow and so, alas, he has, to the everlasting harm of the actual Jewish people.

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I end by repeating that it would have been better for the last four centuries of the Jewish people had Shakespeare never written this play.  

Harold Bloom.  Shakespeare's The Merchant Of Venice.  Riverhead Books.  New York. 2005

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