Act 5 — The Merchant of Venice — Edexcel GCSE English Literature 1ET0
Edexcel GCSE English Literature · 1ET0
Act 5
The plot, part by part
What you need to know
Lorenzo and Jessica at Belmont, the return of Portia and Nerissa, the quarrel over the rings, Antonio's ships restored, and a comic ending without Shylock.
Key quotations: 'The moon shines bright: in such a night as this', 'How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!', 'The man that hath no music in himself', 'How far that little candle throws his beams! / So shines a good deed in a naughty world', 'When the moon shone, we did not see the candle', 'If you did know to whom I gave the ring', 'Let not that doctor e'er come near my house', 'Nothing is good, I see, without respect', 'Sweet lady, you have given me life and living', 'There do I give to you and Jessica, / From the rich Jew, a special deed of gift'.
Structure: the moonlit, musical opening and the comic quarrel over the rings as a harmonious ending, and Shylock's absence from it.
Context: the play as a comedy that ends in marriages and music, and why some critics group it with Shakespeare's problem plays.
Edexcel's Shakespeare question has two parts: part (a) on the printed extract marks only language, form and structure (AO2), so context earns nothing there; part (b) on the play elsewhere, from memory, marks the argument and its references (AO1, 15 marks) and context (AO3, 5 marks), not language analysis. Say which part each worked paragraph and exam tip is for.
