Context: Anti-Semitism & Elizabethan Venice
Why Context Matters for The Merchant of Venice
To understand The Merchant of Venice, you need to understand the world Shakespeare wrote it in. The play was written around 1596–1597, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. England at this time was an overwhelmingly Christian country, and attitudes towards Jewish people were shaped by centuries of religious prejudice, legal exclusion, and cultural stereotyping. Shakespeare’s audience would have brought deep-rooted assumptions about Jewish characters onto the stage — assumptions that Shakespeare both exploits and, at times, complicates.
The AQA exam tests your understanding of context through AO3. For this play, that means knowing how anti-Semitism shaped Elizabethan society, why Venice mattered as a setting, and how attitudes towards money-lending drove the central conflict.
Anti-Semitism in Elizabethan England
Jews had been expelled from England in 1290 by Edward I and were not formally readmitted until 1656 under Oliver Cromwell. This means that when Shakespeare wrote The Merchant of Venice, there was no official Jewish community in England. Most Elizabethans had never met a Jewish person. Their understanding of Jewish people came entirely from religious teaching, which cast Jews as the people who rejected and crucified Christ, and from literary and theatrical stereotypes — particularly the figure of the greedy, villainous Jew.
Christopher Marlowe’s play The Jew of Malta (c. 1589) had already established this stereotype on the Elizabethan stage. Marlowe’s Barabas is a cartoonishly evil Jewish character who poisons nuns and orchestrates murders. Shakespeare’s Shylock is far more complex, but the audience would have arrived expecting a villain.
Jews were expelled from England in 1290 and not readmitted until 1656. Most Elizabethans had never met a Jewish person — their views came from religious teaching and theatrical stereotypes like Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta. Shakespeare both uses and subverts these expectations through Shylock.
In 1594, just two years before Shakespeare probably wrote The Merchant of Venice, Dr Roderigo Lopez — a Portuguese Jewish physician who served Queen Elizabeth I — was accused of plotting to poison her. He was executed for treason. The case whipped up a wave of anti-Jewish feeling in London and led to a revival of Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta. Shakespeare was almost certainly aware of the Lopez affair, and it may have inspired him to write a play featuring a Jewish character. The question is whether Shakespeare intended to reinforce anti-Semitic attitudes or challenge them — and the answer is probably both.
Venice: A City of Trade and Tolerance
Shakespeare set the play in Venice for good reason. Venice in the sixteenth century was the commercial capital of Europe — a wealthy, cosmopolitan city-state that depended on international trade. Unlike England, Venice had a recognised Jewish community. Jews were confined to the ghetto (the very word comes from Venetian Italian — the Ghetto Nuovo, established in 1516), but they were permitted to live and work in the city because their financial services were essential to the economy.
This tension is central to the play. Venice needs Shylock’s money but despises him for who he is. The Christian characters borrow from him, profit from his loans, and then condemn him for the very practice that benefits them. Shakespeare uses Venice as a microcosm for exploring how societies can be simultaneously dependent on and hostile towards minority groups.
Usury: The Sin of Charging Interest
Usury — the practice of charging interest on loans — was considered a sin by the Christian Church. Biblical passages such as Deuteronomy 23:19 (“Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother”) were used to condemn it. However, Jewish religious law permitted charging interest to non-Jews, which meant that money-lending became one of the few professions open to Jewish people in medieval and early modern Europe. Christians needed the service but resented those who provided it.
This is the foundation of the conflict between Antonio and Shylock. Antonio lends money without interest (a Christian virtue), which undercuts Shylock’s business. Shylock resents Antonio for this, but also for the personal abuse Antonio has heaped on him: “You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog, / And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine” (Act 1, Scene 3). The audience must decide whether Shylock’s anger is justified — a question Shakespeare deliberately leaves open.
Usury was condemned by the Christian Church but was one of the few professions available to Jewish people. Antonio lends without interest, undercutting Shylock’s livelihood. This economic rivalry is inseparable from the religious prejudice that drives the play’s central conflict.
Shylock’s reference to his “Jewish gaberdine” is significant. In many European cities, Jewish people were required to wear distinctive clothing to mark them out from Christians. The gaberdine was a visible badge of difference. When Shylock says Antonio spat on it, he is describing not just personal insult but systematic, public humiliation — the kind of abuse that was routine and socially acceptable. For a modern audience, this is deeply uncomfortable; for an Elizabethan audience, it may have seemed unremarkable.
Comedy, Tragedy, or Problem Play?
The Merchant of Venice is classified as a comedy in Shakespeare’s First Folio (1623), which means it ends with marriages, reconciliation, and order restored. But modern audiences and critics often find the play deeply troubling. Shylock’s treatment in Act 4 — stripped of his wealth, forced to convert to Christianity — feels more like tragedy than comedy. Some scholars classify it as a problem play, a work that refuses to offer comfortable resolutions.
In the exam, you should be aware that the play can be read in multiple ways. An Elizabethan audience might have cheered Shylock’s downfall; a modern audience is more likely to feel sympathy. Shakespeare gives Shylock some of the most powerful and human speeches in the play — which raises the question of whether he intended to challenge his audience’s prejudices even as he appeared to confirm them.