The Scandalous Contract of Venice

Abstract

I was a student in high school when my batch-mates in a different section read The Merchant of Venice in their English class, while I ended up with a text that semester I can’t even recall. Though I did get Julius Caesar eventually, I missed The Merchant of Venice. For the past 25 years I have had a copy of The Merchant of Venice at home, but I found that the medieval English of Shakespeare strained my mind, notwithstanding his brilliant poetry, and so the book went unread all those years while remaining on my home shelf, moving with me as I moved from countries and cities. Well, I eventually caught up with my high school batch-mates when I watched the movie version of The Merchant of Venice last week. Just as well I didn’t read The Merchant of Venice in high school, I think, because I could now watch it without rosecolored glasses, and without any biases for what my teacher would have taught me, and without the prejudice of opinions that I might have developed at that young age. And there is another reason that it’s good I didn’t read The Merchant of Venice in high school, and that is that I was motivated enough to watch the movie. Who knows, if I had known the story, my hand might not have stretched out to the DVD for The Merchant of Venice when I picked it from the library shelf, and this article would never have seen the light of day or the dark of night, whatever you prefer. After watching the movie, needless to say, I stretched out to the book on my home shelf and read it through ... finding it quite entertaining.