The Merchant of Venice

'The introduction and commentary reveal an author with a lively awareness of the importance of of perceiving the play as a theatrical document, one which comes to life, which is completed only in performance.'The Review of English StudiesIn a substantial new section, Charles Edelman focuses on the play's sexual politics and recent scholarship devoted to the position of Jews in Shakespeare's time. He surveys the international scope of theatrical interpretations of The Merchant in the 1980s and 1990s and different ways of tackling the troubling figure of Shylock.