Context & Elizabethan Venice
Shakespeare’s Venice: A World Built on Trade
Shakespeare wrote The Merchant of Venice in approximately 1596–1597, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The play is set in Venice, which Elizabethan audiences associated with extraordinary wealth, international commerce, and a degree of cultural tolerance that England itself did not possess. Venice was the commercial capital of Europe — a city where fortunes were made and lost on the sea, and where merchants from across the world came to trade. Shakespeare uses this setting deliberately: Venice’s reliance on trade creates the conditions for the central conflict between Antonio, a Christian merchant, and Shylock, a Jewish moneylender.
For the Edexcel exam, understanding Venice’s significance is vital. The city’s laws are supposed to be impartial — protecting all citizens regardless of faith — yet the play exposes how that ideal collapses when anti-Semitism runs through every level of society. Venice promises fairness but delivers something far darker.
Venice was chosen as the setting because its famous commercial laws promised impartial justice for all citizens. This makes the trial scene’s outcome — where Shylock is stripped of his wealth and forced to convert — deeply ironic, as the law is twisted to serve Christian interests.
Anti-Semitism in Elizabethan England
Jews had been formally expelled from England in 1290 by Edward I, and were not officially readmitted until 1656. Most Elizabethans had never met a Jewish person. Their understanding of Judaism came from crude stereotypes, religious teachings that blamed Jews for the crucifixion of Christ, and sensationalised stories like the case of Roderigo Lopez — Queen Elizabeth’s own physician, who was executed in 1594 after being accused of trying to poison her. The Lopez case sparked a wave of anti-Semitic feeling in London, and Shakespeare’s play was written in its immediate aftermath.
Elizabethan drama regularly portrayed Jewish characters as villains. Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta (c.1589) features Barabas, a cartoonish Jewish villain who poisons an entire convent of nuns. Shakespeare’s Shylock is far more nuanced, but he still operates within a theatrical tradition that expected Jewish characters to be objects of fear and mockery. Whether Shakespeare intended to challenge or reinforce these stereotypes remains one of the most debated questions in English literature.
Roderigo Lopez was a Portuguese Jewish doctor who served as Elizabeth I’s personal physician. In 1594, he was accused of conspiring to poison the Queen. Despite thin evidence, he was convicted and publicly executed. The Earl of Essex, who led the prosecution, used Lopez’s Jewish heritage to whip up public hatred. The case reignited anti-Semitic sentiment across London, and Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta was revived to packed audiences in its aftermath. Shakespeare almost certainly wrote The Merchant of Venice in this atmosphere of heightened prejudice, which means the play’s portrayal of Shylock would have resonated powerfully with contemporary audiences.
Usury: The Sin of Lending Money
At the heart of the play’s conflict lies the practice of usury — lending money at interest. The medieval Christian Church condemned usury as sinful, citing biblical passages that forbade profiting from another’s need. Jewish law, however, permitted charging interest to non-Jews, which meant that in many European societies, money-lending became one of the few occupations open to Jewish people, who were barred from most trades and guilds.
This created a vicious cycle: Christians needed Jewish moneylenders to fund their ventures, but despised them for the very service they provided. Antonio embodies this contradiction perfectly. He borrows from Shylock while simultaneously spitting on him and calling him “misbeliever, cut-throat dog”. When Shylock reminds him of this, Antonio’s response is chilling: “I am as like to call thee so again, / To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too”. He sees no inconsistency between needing Shylock’s money and abusing him.
Antonio lends money without charging interest, which undercuts Shylock’s business and earns him the hatred of the moneylender. Shylock’s “pound of flesh” bond is not just revenge — it is a response to years of economic sabotage and racial abuse.
The Ghetto and Social Exclusion
In 1516, Venice became the first city in Europe to create a formal ghetto — a walled district where Jewish residents were confined. They were locked in at night and required to wear identifying clothing. While Shakespeare does not explicitly mention the ghetto, his portrayal of Shylock as isolated, excluded, and bitter reflects the real conditions under which Venetian Jews lived. Shylock’s famous speech — “Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?” — is a direct challenge to a society that treats Jewish people as less than human.
Shakespeare structures the play around two contrasting locations. Venice is the world of commerce, law, and conflict — where bonds are made and broken, and where racial and religious tensions play out. Belmont is Portia’s estate, a place of music, love, and apparent harmony. The casket test takes place in Belmont, and the play’s resolution happens there. However, Belmont is not as innocent as it seems: Portia makes racist remarks about her suitors, and the world of Belmont is funded by the same Venetian wealth that depends on exploitation. The contrast between the two settings reinforces the play’s theme of appearance versus reality.
In the Edexcel part (b) response, you can use the Venice/Belmont contrast to structure an argument about how Shakespeare explores prejudice or wealth — showing it operates differently but consistently across both worlds.
Why Context Matters for AO3
In the Edexcel 1ET0 exam, Assessment Objective 3 (AO3) rewards your ability to show understanding of the relationship between the text and its contexts. For The Merchant of Venice, this means demonstrating awareness of Elizabethan attitudes to Jews, the economics of usury, Venice as a trading hub, and the social exclusion that shaped Shylock’s character. The strongest responses do not bolt context on as a separate paragraph — they weave it into language analysis. For example, when analysing Shylock’s line “You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog, / And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine”, a top-level answer would note that “gaberdine” refers to the distinctive clothing Jews were forced to wear, making the abuse both personal and institutionalised.