Harold Bloom,The Invention of the Human
The Merchant of Veniceis “a profoundly anti- Semitic work.”
“Shylock is a comic villain and … Portia would cease to be sympathetic if Shylock were allowed to be a figure of overwhelming pathos.”
“Shakespeare’s comedy is Portia’s play, and not Shylock’s.”
“There is an extraordinary energy in Shylock’s prose and poetry, a force both cognitive and passional [sic], which palpably is in excess of the play’s comic requirements.”
“Shylock simply does not fit is role; he is the wrong Jew in the right play.”
NOTE: Although Bloom calls the play Portia’s, he devotes most of his chapter to Shylock.