Includes bibliographical references (p. 175-196) and index.

Beginning -- The heart of it -- Shylock's nothing -- The house of the three caskets -- Exchanges -- Shylock unbound -- Are you answered -- A theater of complicity -- The third possessor -- Conversion -- Golems and ghosts -- A dream -- Esthétique du mal -- Operation Shylock.

Description based on print version record.

Shylock, the Jewish moneylender in The Merchant of Venice who famously demands a pound of flesh as security for a loan to his antisemitic tormentors, is one of Shakespeare?s most complex and idiosyncratic characters. With his unsettling eloquence and his varying voices of protest, play, rage, and refusal, Shylock remains a source of perennial fascination. What explains the strange and enduring force of this character, so unlike that of any other in Shakespeare?s plays? Kenneth Gross posits that the figure of Shylock is so powerful because he is the voice of Shakespeare himself. Marvelously spe.