Money and trade

How Shakespeare explores money, trade, debt and usury in a merchant city, and what wealth is worth against love and friendship across the text, and why it matters to the text's meaning.
Where it appears, the key quotations that show it, and different ways it can be interpreted.
Evidence from the beginning, middle and end of the text.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'ships are but boards, sailors but men', 'Antonio is a good man', 'He lends out money gratis', 'Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, in one night fourscore ducats', 'Thou stick'st a dagger in me', 'The paper as the body of my friend, / And every word in it a gaping wound, / Issuing life-blood', 'the trade and profit of the city / Consisteth of all nations', 'you take my life / When you do take the means whereby I live', 'you drop manna in the way / Of starved people'.
Context: Venice as a trading republic built on sea trade, and Christian teaching that condemned lending money at interest.
Money and love tangled together: Bassanio's debts, Portia's fortune, Jessica's ducats, and bonds of money set against bonds of friendship.

What you need to know