GENERAL PREFACE In this edition of SHAKESPEARE an attempt is made to present the greater plays of the dramatist in their literary aspect, and not merely as material for the study of philology or grammar. Criticism purely verbal and textual has only been included to such an extent as may serve to help the student in the appreciation of the essential poetry. Questions of date and literary history have been fully dealt with in the Introductions, but the larger space has been devoted to the interpretative rather than the matter-of-fact order of scholarship. Esthetic judgments are never final, but the Editors have attempted to suggest points of view from which the analysis of dramatic motive and dramatic character may be profitably undertaken. In the Notes likewise, while it is hoped that all unfamiliar expressions and allusions have been adequately explained, yet it has been thought even more important to consider the dramatic value of each scene, and the part which it plays in relation to the whole. These general principles are common to the whole series; in detail cach Editor is alone responsible for the play or plays that have been intrusted to him. Every volume of the series has been provided with a Glossary, an Essay upon Metre, and an Index; and Appendices have been added upon points of special interest which could not conveniently be treated in the Introduction or the Notes. The text is based by the several Editors on that of the Globe edition. INTRODUCTION 1. DATE OF THE COMPOSITION OF THE PLAY 66 The Merchant of Venice was first printed in 1600, when it appeared by itself in two quarto editions, one, called the First Quarto, published by James Roberts, the other, the Second Quarto, by Thomas Heyes. It had been in existence at least two years before, for on July 22, 1598, it was entered in the Stationers' Register by James Roberts under the name of a booke of the Marchaunt of Venyce or otherwise called the Jewe of Venice." And, in the same year, 1598, appeared the Palladis Tamia or Wit's Treasury, by Francis Meres, who names the following comedies of Shakespeare: his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his Love labors lost, his Love labours wonne, his Midsummers night dreame, and his Merchant of Venice." 66 So far as external evidence goes, therefore,1 we can be certain that the play was written not later than the end of 1597. All attempts to fix the date more precisely than this rest upon unsatisfactory evidence. For instance, much use has been made of the fact that in the account book of Philip Henslowe, proprietor of the theatre where Shakespeare's fellow-actors were playing between 1594 and 1596, we find under the date August 25, 1594, a reference to the performance of a new play, the Venesyon Comodey. But there is no sort of proof that this is Shakespeare's play. Again, some have seen a close resemblance between Shylock's argument in the trial scene as to the treatment of slaves and the argument of a Jew contained in Silvayn's Orator, which was published in 1596. But the differences are at least as striking as the resemblance. In manner, The Merchant of Venice is near akin to Twelfth Night, As You Like It, and Much Ado About Nothing. With these plays of Shakespeare's middle period, it has much more in common than with the earlier comedies mentioned along with it by Francis Meres. This is particularly conspicuous in the free employment of prose, 1 For the different kinds of evidence obtainable in settling the date of one of Shakespeare's plays, see the admirable summary in chapter iv of Dowden's Shakspere Primer. |