‘Which is the stranger here?’ – Degrees of doubleness, hospitality, and invisibility in The Merchant of Venice

Abstract

Certain critical works and productions, before and after World War II, have foregrounded The Merchant of Venice’s animosity to the Jews and its replication of the myth of the blood libel. Starting from Philip Roth’s meditations on the doubleness of identity, this article explores a ‘hosting’ of Shylock that may be approached through Derridean notions of ‘hospitality’. It then moves on to consider the silence regarding data on early modern Venetian Jews and Jewish theology. What could be termed one of Shakespeare’s most uncanny hate plays continues to pose complex problems of reception in criticism and on contemporary stages.