Post-Shoah Shylocks: adapting 'The Merchant of Venice' for twentieth and twenty-first century audiences

Although much has already been written on the play’s anti-Semitism, Shylock, and various individual productions, an in-depth global study of the Holocaust’s impact on performance remains untouched. This research, then, traces how perceptions of Jewish identity have changed since the Holocaust, and how these changes have irrevocably altered the representations of Shylock and Jewish persecution in Shakespeare adaptation.

Utilising a rich methodology which includes postcolonialism, trauma theory, modernism, psychoanalysis, and feminism, this PhD thesis analyses adaptations from around the world from mainly nonmainstream traditions. In doing so, this research ultimately demonstrates that postwar Merchants function as an invaluable and flexible channel through which to interrogate both the Holocaust and its aftermath.<br><br>Chapter One investigates how the popular medium of film has largely informed public understandings of the Holocaust, and how the complex issues associated with these narratives affect filmic Merchant adaptations which reference the Shoah.