Comprehensively rediscovers a lost tradition of women's writing on Shakespeare.

The Merchant of Venice has always been regarded as one of Shakespeare's most interesting plays. Before the nineteenth century critical reaction is relatively fragmentary. However between then and the late twentieth century the critical tradition reveals the tremendous vitality of the play to evoke emotion in the theatre and in the study. Since the middle of the twentieth century reactions to the drama have been influenced by the Nazi destruction of European Jewry. The first volume to document the full tradition of criticism of The Merchant of Venice includes an extensive introduction which charts the reactions to the play up to the beginning of the twenty first century and reflects changing reactions to prejudice in this period. Material by a variety of critics appears here for the first time since initial publication. Reactions are included from: Malone, Hazlitt, Jameson, Heine, Knight, Lewes, Halliwell-Phillips, Furnivall, Irving, Ruskin, Swinburne, Masefield, Gollancz and Quiller-Couch.

The vitality of our culture is still often measured by the status Shakespeare has within it. Contemporary readers and writers continue to exploit Shakespeare's cultural afterlife in a vivid and creative way. This fascinating collection of original essays shows how writers' efforts to imitate, contradict, compete with, and reproduce Shakespeare keep him in the cultural conversation. The essays: * analyze the methods and motives of Shakespearean appropriation * investigate theoretically the return of the repressed author in discussions of Shakespeare's cultural function * put into dialogue theoretical and literary responses to Shakespeare's cultural authority * analyze works ranging from nineteenth century to the present, and genres ranging from poetry and the novel to Disney movies.