Context
Name the two cities where the play is set.
Venice and Belmont
In the trial scene, Portia disguises herself as which male character?
Balthasar
How much money does Shylock loan Antonio, with the penalty of a "pound of flesh"?
3000 ducats
"He lends out money gratis and brings down / The rate of usance here with us in Venice" is said by which character?
Shylock
What dramatic technique is used when the audience knows that Portia is disguised as a lawyer, but the other characters do not?
Dramatic irony
"In this common module students deepen their understanding of how texts represent _________ and _______ human experiences."
In this common module students deepen their understanding of how texts represent individual and collective human experiences.
Definition the term "usury".
Usury is the illegal or unethical practice of lending money at extremely high and unreasonable interest rates.
Who is in love with Gratiano?
Nerissa
What precise legal loophole does Portia use to stop Shylock from collecting his bond?
The bond allows exactly one pound of flesh and no blood. Shylock may take the flesh only if he sheds no blood and takes neither more nor less than an exact pound.
This character said "what heinous sin is it in me/ To be ashamed to be my father’s child!"
Jessica
What is the dramatic technique in which a remark is made directly to the audience or to another character and is not heard by anyone else on stage?
Aside
"Texts represent human _______ and ___________ associated with and arising from these experiences"
Texts represent human qualities and emotions associated with and arising from these experiences.
William Shakespeare wrote The Merchant of Venice during this broad historical period.
Elizabethan era
What is the full name of Shylock's servant and the comic relief character?
Launcelot Gobbo
Which casket contains the inscription: “Who chooseth me, shall get as much as he deserves"?
Silver Casket
"All that glisters is not gold" is said by which character?
Prince of Morocco
What is ONE element of comedic conventions that Shakespeare incorporates in The Merchant of Venice?
Marriage, misunderstandings/misinterpretations, disguises/mistaken identity
"Students explore how texts may give insight into the _____________, _______________ and ___________ in human behaviour and __________"
Students explore how texts may give insight into the anomalies, paradoxes and inconsistencies in human behaviour and motivations
Which significant event in English history provides important context for understanding Elizabethan attitudes toward Jewish characters like Shylock, and in what year did it occur?
The 1290 Edict of Expulsion: Jews were formally expelled from England and not officially permitted to resettle until the 1650s.
Which character delivers some of the play's crudest anti-Shylock taunts during the trial scene, prompting critical debate over how the play wants the audience to judge him?
Gratiano
Jessica sold Shylock's ring, which he said he "had it of Leah when [he] was a bachelor." What does Jessica receive as payment for the ring?
A monkey
This character opens the play by saying, “In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.”
Antonio
da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM
Iambic pentameter
Texts invite the responder so "see the __________ differently, to challenge ___________, _______ new ideas or _______ personally"
Texts invite the responder so "see the world differently, to challenge assumptions, ignite new ideas or reflect personally"
Shylock's portrayal is thought to have been shaped by anti-Jewish hysteria following a real 1594 trial. The Jewish physician Roderigo Lopez was executed after he was accused of what?
Plotting to poison Queen Elizabeth I
What is the name of Shylock’s friend in the play?
Tubal
Name the items in EACH of the three caskets.
1. Lead casket- portrait of Portia
2. Silver casket- portrait of a blinking idiot
3. Gold casket- human skull
Recite at least four lines from Portia’s famous “mercy” speech.
The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'T is mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea;
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.
What is the term, used by Aristotle, for a a sudden reversal of fortune or turning point in a drama where a character's situation shifts to its exact opposite?
Peripeteia
Students are to "draw from personal experience to make connections between ______, the ________ of the text and their _______ ______."
Draw from personal experience to make connections between themselves, the world of the text and their wider world.