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Abstract
Shakespeare’s Shylock from the Merchant of Venice is a complex character who not only defies simple definition but also takes over a play in which he is not the titular character. How Shakespeare arrived at Shylock in the absence of a Jewish presence in early modern England, as well as what caused the playwright to humanize his villain when other playwrights had not is the subject of much debate. This thesis shows Shakespeare’s humanizing of Shylock as a blurring of the lines between Jews and Christians, and as such, a shift of usury from a uniquely Jewish problem to a human problem. This shift is then explicated in terms of a changing England in a time where economic necessity challenged religious authority and creating compassion for a Jew on the stage created compassion symbolically for Christian usurers as well.