Shylock on the Stage

Toby Lelyveld

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317638735
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism of Shakespeare
• Index: Literature

Originally published in 1961, this book is a study of the ways actors since the time of Shakespeare have portrayed the character of Shylock. A pioneering work in the study of performance history as well as in the portrayal of Jews in English literature. Specifically it studies Charles Macklin, Edmund Kean, Edwin Booth, Henry Irving and more recent performers.

CHAPTER I In the Beginning

DOI: 10.4324/9781315759296-1

CONTENTIOUS discussion and a variety of interpretation surround the stage history of The Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare was primarily a showman. Among the many facets of his genius was the incomparable capacity to infuse life into stock characters. With conscious artistry, he created an eternally fascinating play out of his deep insight. The question of whether or not he intended his comedy to embody a thesis is related to a complex of psychological and sociological factors so intricate that it all but defies analysis.

The interest that surrounds the central character of The Merchant of Venice is no less intense today than it was in the sixteenth century. Shylock remains as vivid as Hamlet, but the evaluation of him as a character has a particular significance. The vastly differing audience responses to Shylock from the Elizabethan age to the twentieth century reveal the pace of the development of human understanding. The history of The Merchant of Venice gives us a glimpse of the changes in the theatre over a period of 360 years while the history of the playing of Shylock gives us the groundwork for some generalizations as to the shifts of social attitudes over the same period. At any rate, there is obviously something extraordinary in this play which has made it a consistent favorite with actors and public for so many centuries as a vehicle both for comedians and tragedians.

Shylock is, primarily, Shakespeare’s conception of a Jew. Whatever was known of Jews in England during the years of their exile, came chiefly via the dubious route that ballads and the drama travelled. Popular ditties about the Wandering Jew and the numerous versions of the ballad that details the sad fate of little Hugh of Lincoln at the hands of the “cruel” Jews were tearfully sung for many generations. In Chaucers The Prioress’ Tale, in which the story of Hugh of Lincoln is retold, in Piers Plowman and in John Gower’s Confessio Amantis, there is further expression of the strong antipathy to Jews in England during this period. In medieval times, the stage-Jew was invaribly grotesque and evil. In the crucifixion pageants at York, the alleged brutalities and fiendish qualities of the Jews were emphasized. Later plays of the guilds struck the same anti-Jewish note. The Jews in the Corpus Christi pageants were characterized as inhuman and evil, and in The Betraying of Christ and The Judgment Day, they were made ridiculous in appearance, as well.

The contemporary background for these delineations is revealing. William the Conqueror had encouraged Jews to settle in England. They were granted a charter in the twelfth century and governed their own community according to Jewish law, which King John recognized as valid. But their sense of security was soon destroyed. In 1144, when a young boy disappeared in Norwich, there followed the accusation that the Jews had been responsible for his murder. The ensuing attack upon the Jewish settlement was the first in a long series of “ritual murder” incidents. Despite the protests of Pope Innocent IV, the accusations continued. During the reign of Henry II, however, the Jews were able to live under relatively favorable conditions, although they were still barred from the artisan guilds and prohibited from holding land.

Nevertheless, Jews were extremely useful in the economic scheme. No agency existed for money-lending, and since the Church forbade Christians to take interest, several Jews who had acquired wealth filled the gap in the economic life of England by becoming money-lenders. It was difficult to collect taxes. Powerful barons were constantly in need of money and they were willing to borrow and even to repay at interest. In this way, money accumulated in a number of Jewish coffers but these were drained periodically by the government which thus profited by ingenious means of indirect taxation. The Jew of Malta includes an example of this sort of taxation. The few Jews who became expert as bankers inevitably acquired power. Aaron of Lincoln became one of the most influential bankers of Europe.

A Jew could not bequeath his money to his heirs. He was regarded as a royal serf;¹ his funds, upon his death, were inherited by the king. Tax rates varied considerably. While Jews did not have the privileges of the Christian community, they were expected to support it. They were not exempt from the payment of church tithes. The Jews of England paid one-half of King Richard’s 100,000 marks’ ransom, while the entire city of London was assessed only 1,500 marks. In order to finance the Third Crusade, the Jews, as chattels of the crown, were taxed to the extent of one-fourth of their movable property, while the remainder of the population paid one-tenth. Although the Jews constituted only one-quarter of one percent of the total population of England in the twelfth century, they contributed eight percent of the total income of the treasury.²

¹ “It should be known that all Jews, wheresoever in the realm they be, ought to be under the guard and protection of the King’s liege. Nor ought any of them place himself under any rich man without the King’s license; because the Jews themselves and all theirs belong to the King, and if any detain them or their money, let the King, if he will or can, ask it back as if it were his own.” Cited by Joseph Jacobs, The Jews of Angevin England, London, 1893, p. 68. ² Salo Wittmayer Baron, “A Social and Religious History of the Jews, New York, 1937, vol. II, p. 18.

In spite of all this, their position in England became increasingly precarious. Their expulsion from England was hastened by the rise of several Italian banking houses, to which England now gave its patronage. Jewish money-lenders began to lose their importance and their stay in England was now considered superfluous. In 1189, a deputation of Jews, bearing gifts to Richard I at the time of his coronation, was attacked by the mob and slaughtered. Other riots followed. In 1217, English Jews were made to wear the ignominious yellow badge. By this time, the word “Jew” had become a synonym for usurer, liar, rascal, cheat.

The Jews were exiled from England in 1290, in the reign of Edward I. Sixteen thousand of them left, taking with them their movable possessions. One-tenth of them fled to Flanders; the remainder sought refuge in France.³ But a number of favored Jews undoubtedly remained even after the expulsion was ordered. To their number were added, in time, the many Jewish refugees who fled to London from Spain during the Inquisition. Some historians are of the opinion that there was a considerable number of Jewish descendants in London in Shakespeare’s day, since special arrangements had to be made to accommodate them in the chapels of the Spanish and Portuguese embassies.⁴ They existed as Marranos, or crypto-Jews, who outwardly professed their adherence to Christianity but who secretly worshipped as Jews.⁵ Those who came to England in Elizabeth’s time lived in greater safety there than had their forebears in Spain.⁶

³ According to one historian, many of the 16,000 Jews who left, perished on the way. Some 2000 went to Flanders, Brabant and Guelderland. Others went to the borderland between Flanders and France. Elkan Nathan Adler, London, Philadelphia, 1930, p. 62. ⁴ Salo Wittmayer Baron, The Jewish Community, Philadelphia, 1942, vol. I, p. 255. ⁵ Lucien Wolf, with the aid of Inquisition records, concludes that almost one hundred Jews resided in England during Elizabeth’s reign. Presidential Address to the Jewish Historical Society of England, Manchester, November 21, 1926. ⁶ Adler, op. cit., p. 80.

Certain group characteristics that might generally be termed “Jewish” must have been apparent to the keen observer in Shakespeare’s day. But a close acquaintance with the sectarian practices of Jews could not have been possible for outsiders at a time when those practices were outlawed. England’s archives were well-kept; there is no record of any disaffection among these pseudo-Christians. To all intents, there were no longer any Jews in England.

Thus, when Shakespeare presented The Merchant of Venice, Shylock’s outrageous behavior came as no shock to the Elizabethans. They sided with the Christians in the play, whose terms of opprobrium for Shylock reflected the popular attitude. It was natural for them to accept the sentence that compelled Shylock to turn Christian. They hated his religion as much as they did that of a Jesuit or a Turk.

The execution of Rodrigo Lopez, Portuguese-Jewish physician to Queen Elizabeth, in 1594, very likely provided Shakespeare with a springboard for his play. Lopez, who had been physician to the Earl of Leicester, Burbages patron, had been implicated in a series of court intrigues that stemmed from a long-standing enmity between the physician and the Earl of Essex. Although later historians have found only inconclusive evidence of his guilt in plotting against the life of the queen, the Elizabethans had nothing but loathing for the proselytized Jew, and they rejoiced at his death. If any parallel could be drawn between Lopez and Shylock, the Elizabethans would have been quick to recognize it. Hatred of the Jews in the sixteenth century is not a matter of conjecture. Reviling the Jew was part of the social convention of Shakespeare’s day.

Christopher Marlowe’s characterization of Barabas in The Jew of Malta⁷ was considered so appropriate, in fact, that it was presented twice within ten days following Lopez’ hanging.⁸ Barabas is unrelievedly and preposterously villainous, and his role suffers from a lack of nuance. The Elizabethans jeered at his excesses and hooted at the moment of his fierce and shrieking death. Apparently, as the stage representative of the Jews, he was perennially interesting.

⁷ Written circa 1590; it was not printed until 1594. Its first recorded stage presentation was in the week of February 26, 1592. ⁸ During the weeks of June 8 and 15, 1594, at Newington Butts. These were succeeded by performances at The Rose Theatre during the weeks of June 27, July 6 and 13.

It is largely a matter of guesswork as to whether it was Richard Burbage or Will Kempe who first played Shylock. There are ample grounds for suspecting that either actor could have played the role to the complete satisfaction of an Elizabethan audience. But since Kempe played comedy, and there is no evidence that Shylock was played as a comic character in Shakespeare’s day, the probability is considerable that Burbage played the part. Whether or not Shylock was played seriously, there can be no doubt that whoever essayed the role gave it the unsympathetic reading that the sixteenth-century playgoer had come to expect.

For a great many years, writers had referred with confidence to the “red-haired Jew”, in describing the appearance of the actor who played Shylock in Shakespeare’s day. We know now that the phrase originates in a Collier forgery.⁹ The occasion for the imposture was a poem entitled A Funeral Elegy on the Death of the Famous Actor, Richard Burhage that Collier claimed to have found in manuscript. Related to Shylock are the lines:

⁹ John Payne Collier, literary and dramatic critic, whose numerous interesting “discoveries” in Elizabethan records were later found to be his own manuscript additions.

Heart-broken Philaster, and Amintas too,

Are lost forever; with the red-hair’d Jew,

Who sought the bankrupt merchant’s pound of flesh,

By woman-lawyer caught in his own mesh

Yet, the failure of this interesting bit of “evidence” to establish the original color of Shylock’s beard, does not, of course, indicate that Shylock’s beard was not red. The chances are that it was, for Edmund ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Title Original Page
• Copyright Original Page
• Dedication
• Preface
• Table of Contents
• Illustration
• Chapter I In The Beginning
• Chapter II Charles Macklin
• Chapter III Edmund Kean and His Era
• Chapter IV Edwin Booth
• Chapter V Henry Irving
• Chapter VI Lesser Lights
• Chapter VII Shylock Distorted
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Index