Why is merchant of venice seen as being controversial

The Merchant of Venice in Shakespeare’s most controversial play, giving us as it does a portrait of a bloodthirsty moneylender, Shylock, whose consuming lust for barbaric revenge on the merchant Antonio, indeed, whose very essence, springs from the fact that he is Jewish – Jewish and thus a despised outsider in the Christian republic in which he lives.

Explanation: The controversy is simple: is or is not the play anti-Semitic? Certainly it is not a comfortable work to encounter if you are Jewish yourself, and Jewish critics such as Anthony Julius and Harold Bloom have roundly asserted that its anti-Semitism is beyond doubt.

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