The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice is a 16th-century play written by William Shakespeare in which a merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan provided by a Jewish moneylender, Shylock. It is believed to have been written between 1596 and 1599.

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 Shylock and his famous "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech on humanity. Also notable is Portia's speech about "the quality of mercy" (Source: Wikipedia)

Once upon a Greek stage

| Mythological Background | Importance of Burial in Greek Religion | History | Introduction | Greek Tragedy | Sequence of Events | Characters | Places | Summary |

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Summary

Oedipus and Jocasta had been the king and the Queen of Thebes respectively. There were four children in the royal family; Antigone, Ismene her sister and two brothers Polynices and Eteocles; who were twins. When King Oedipus and Jocasta died, the twin sons were both eligible to succeed their father and both of them wanted to rule Thebes.

Later they came up with what seemed like a reasonable solution. Eteocles was to rule for one year and Polynices for the next. Whichever one was having his year off was to leave Thebes. But it didn’t work. It was full of loopholes. When Eteocles year of ruling was over, he decided he didn’t want to give up the throne. Polynices wasn’t about to let him away with that. So, he gathered an army and attacked Thebes. Somehow in the scuffle, he and Eteocles got into a hand to hand fight right at the edge of the city and killed each other.