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THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

EDITED WITH NOTES AND AN INTRODUCTION

BY

CHARLOTTE WHIPPLE UNDERWOOD

INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH IN THE LEWIS INSTITUTE
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

New York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.

1918

All rights reserved

HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

COPYRIGHT, 1899,

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published August, 1899. Reprinted February, September, 1900; January, July, 1901; April, December, 1902; July, October, 1903; July, 1904; February, August, September, 1905; September, 1906; April, July, 1907; May, 1908; July, 1909; February, June, 1910; January, August, 1911; August, 1912; March, August, 1913; February, September, December, 1914; June, 1915; January, June, 1916; August, December, 1917.

PREFACE

THIS edition of The Merchant of Venice comes into being because of the pleasure I have found in teaching Shakespeare to classes of boys and girls in secondary schools, and because I have felt the need of giving such classes certain questions and suggestions to help them in their study.

The teacher of fiction aims to secure from pupils a thoughtful, accurate interpretation of an author's words, and at the same time to arouse an enthusiastic interest in the characters portrayed. To know life is the great end of all literary study, and nothing else is important except as it finally serves this end. In my own teaching of Shakespeare, I have found that a careful study of the poet's meaning never failed to strengthen interest in his characters. I am convinced, therefore, that classes, especially those just beginning

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to study Shakespeare, need to give more thought than they often do to the author's language. It is frequently desirable to require from a student the paraphrase of a difficult passage. The dangers of this practice may be fully counteracted by the memorizing of many quotations, and by the reading of many passages

aloud.

The practice of reading aloud from the play is always to be commended. Far more valuable to the pupil often than any explanation and study is the hearing of some passage appreciatively read by a teacher. When the play has been carefully worked over line by line, when its characters have been discussed in all possible relations and from every conceivable point of view, even when long quotations have been committed to memory, still the class has not come fully into its inheritance until the whole play, or the most of it, has been read aloud, — whole scenes and whole acts at a time, - and that by pupils who have previously rehearsed their parts with spirit and expression.

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