English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Zendy Plus

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Zendy Tools

Zendy Open

The final act of The Merchant of Venice (ca. 1596–97) has always struck some readers as superfluous. By the end of act 4 the pound-of-flesh plot is resolved and even the love plots have few loose ends left to tie up. Yet Shakespeare gives us another whole act, a leisurely, playful return to Belmont and to the veryminor problems of a half-dozen generally happy lovers. But if act 5 feels unnecessary to many readers, it poses a special problem for those who regard Shylock as the play’s dramatic and emotional heart. If Shylock is, in whatever sense, the work’s hero—and especially if he is intended as a witness to Venetian intolerance and Christian hypocrisy—then how do we account for the insistent festivity of act 5? For the play does not merely leave Shylock behind; it briskly strips him of both identity and possessions before turning to themoonlit gambols of those responsible for his undoing. One common response to the seemingly radical tonal shift between acts 4 and 5 has been to scour the latter for signs of dissension and unease: evidence that all is not as well in Belmont as it appears. But although there

Shylock Celebrates Easter