Front cover image for Shylock is Shakespeare

Shylock is Shakespeare

Kenneth Gross (Author)
"Speculative and articulate, Gross's book sees Shylock as a breakthrough for Shakespeare, an early realization of the Bard's power to create dramatic voices that speak for unconscious, even inhuman impulses - characters larger than the plays that contain them. Shylock is a figure who gains strength from those who hate him. He supplies a mask for Shakespeare's own need, rage, vulnerability, generosity, and ambition, as well as his anxious bond with his audience, even as he is a character ready to escape the author's control. In envisioning Shylock as Shakespeare's covert double, Gross probes the character's peculiar isolation, ambivalence, opacity, and dark humor

Print Book, English, 2006
University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2006