Merchant of Venice: Literary Devices and Techniques: Act I

Device Quotation Explanation and Significance

SIMILE Your mind…were the pageants of the sea...(1.1.8-11)

ALLUSION Now by two headed Janus,/Nature nath fram’d strange fellows in her time (1.1.50-51)

SIMILE Why should a man whose blood is warm within/Sit like his gandsire cut in alabaster? (1.1.83-84)

SIMILE His[Gratiano] reasons are as two grains wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them they are not worth the search. (1.1.115-118)

ALLUSION …but my chief care/Is to come fairly off from the great debts/Wherein my time, something too prodigal,/Hath left me gag’d. (1.1.127-130)

SIMILE

ANALOGY

I owe you much, and like a willful youth/That which I owe is lost…And out of doubt you do me now more wrong/In making question of my uttermost. (1.1.144-156)

METAPHOR …such a hare is madness of the youth, to skip o’er the meshes of good counsel the cripple. (1.2.18-20)

PUN It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean-…(1.2.7-8)

ALLUSION I fear he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old, being so full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. (1.2.46-48)

Device Quotation Explanation and Significance

SIMILE

ALLUSION

…like a golden fleece,/Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos’ strand,/And many Jasons come in quest of her.

(1.1.170-172)

SIMILE

ALLUSION

If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as Diana unless I be obtained by the manner of my father’s will. (1.2.98-100)

SIMILE How like a fawning publican he looks! (1.3.36)

ALLUSION When Jacob graz’d his uncle Laban’s sheep-This Jacob from our holy Abram was…(66-83)

METAPHOR

PERSONIFICATION

SIMILE

This devil can cite Scripture for his purpose./ An evil soul producing holy witness /Is like a villain with a smiling cheek…(1.3.93-95)

METAPHOR Why look you how you storm!/I would be friends with you, and have your love,/Forget the shames that you have stain’d me with,/Supply your present wants, and take no doit/Of usance for my monies, and you’ll not hear me. This is kind I offer. (1.3.133-138)

PUN Hie thee gentle Jew. (1.3.173)

Merchant of Venice: Literary Devices and Techniques: Act II

Device Quotation Explanation and Significance

ALLUSION Bring me the fairest creature northward born,/Where Phoebus’ fire scarce thaws the icicles…(2.1.4-5)

ALLUSION If Hercules and Lichas play at dice/Which is the better man, the greater throw/May turn by fortune from the weaker hand. (2.1.32-34)

ALLUSION,

DRAMATIC IRONY

…for the young gentleman, according to fates and destines, and such odd sayings, the sisters three, and such branches of learning, is indeed deceased, or as you would say in plain terms, gone to heaven. (2.1.57-60)

IRONY,

ALLUSION

Father, in. I cannot get a service, no, I have ne’er a tongue in my head…Father, come, I’ll take my leave of the Jew in the twinkling. (2.2.145-56)

METAPHOR I am sorry thou wilt leave my father so./Our house is hell… (2.2.1-2)

PUN I know the hand; in faith, ‘tis a fair hand,/And whiter than the paper it writ on/Is the fair hand that writ. (2.4.12-14)

ALLUSION By Jacob’s staff I swear/I have no mind of feasting forth tonight: But I will go.(2.5.35-37)

ALLUSION What says that fool of Hagar’s offspring, ha? (2.5.1)

METAPHOR …he sleeps by day/More than the wildcat. Drones hive not with me,/Therefore I part with him, and part with him/To one that I would have him to help to waste/His borrow’d purse. (2.5.45-49)

ALLUSION,

HYPERBOLE

O, ten times faster, Venus’ pigeon fly/To seal bonds new made than they are wont/To keep obliged faith unforfeited. (2.66-8)

Device Quotation Explanation and Siginificance

SIMILE How like a younger or a prodigal/The scarf’d bark puts from her native bay,/Hugg’d and embraced by the strumpet wind?/How like the prodigal doth she return/With overweather’d ribs and ragged sails,…(2.6.15-19)

ALLUSION For if they could, Cupid himself would blush/To see me thus transformed to a boy. (2.6.39-40)

SIMILE This third dull lead, with warning all as blunt… (2.7.8)

METAPHOR Never so rich a gem/Was set in worse than gold. (2.7.54-55)

SIMILE But like the martlet/Builds in the weather on the outward wall,/Even in the force and road of casualty./I will not choose what many men desire,/Because I will not jump

with common spirits...(2.9.27-31)

Merchant of Venice: Literary Devices and Techniques: Act III

Device Quotation Meaning And Significance

SIMILE I would she were as lying a gossip that as ever knapped ginger or made her neighbours believe she wept for the death of a third husband. (3.1.8-10)

METAPHOR And Shylock for his own part knew the bird was fledged,a nd then it is the complexion of them all to leave the dam. (3.1.26-28)

METAPHOR Let me choose,/For as I am, I live upon the rack. (3.2.24-25)

METAPHOR Then if he lose he makes a swan-like end,/Fading in music

ALLUSION Than young Alcides when he did redeem/The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy/To the sea monster, I stand for sacrifice. (3.2.55-57)

METAPHOR But, being season’d with a gracious voice,/Obscures the show of evil? (3.2.76-77)

ALLUSION The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars,/Who inward search’d have livers white as milk,/And these assume but valour’s excrement/To render them redoubted. (3.2.85-88)

ALLUSION Therefore thou gaudy gold,/Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee. (3.2.102-103)

Device/Technique Quotation Explanation and Significance

SIMILE

I come by note to give, and to receive. Like one of two contending in a prize/That thinks he hath done well in people’s eyes…(3.2.140-145)

PERSONIFICATION Only my blood speaks to you in my veins…(3.2.176)

SIMILE

PERSONIFICATION

ANALOGY

Here is a letter, lady,/The paper as the body of my friend,/And every word in it a gaping wound/Issuing lifeblood. (3.2.261-263)

SIMILE …with a reed voice, and turn two mincing steps/Into a manly stride; and speak of ‘frays—Like a fine bragging youth…(3.5.67-69)

Merchant of Venice: Literary Devices and Techniques: Act IV

Device Quotation Meaning And SignificanceALLITERATIONMETAPHOR

And pluck commiseration of his state/ From brassy bosoms and rough hearts of flint,/ From stubborn Turks, and Tartars never train’d to offices of tender courtesy. (4.1.30-33)

METAPHOR What, wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice? (4.1.69)

HYPERBOLE You may as well go stand upon the beach / And bid the

main flood bate his usual height; …You may as well do anything most hard/ As seek to soften…/ His Jewish heart. (4.171-79)

PUN Not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew,…Can no prayers pierce thee? (4.1.123-126)

METAPHOR ALLUSION

O be thou damn’d, inexorable dog, / And for they life let justice be accus’d…Into trunks of men. (4.1.128-133)

Device/Technique Quotation Explanation and SignificanceSIMILE The quality of mercy is not strain’d…The throned

monarch better than his crown. (4.1.182-188)

ALLUSION A Daniel come to judgement; yea a Daniel!/O wise young judge, how I do honour thee! (4.1.221-222)

ALLUSION For herein Fortune shows herself more kind/ Than is her custom:…/from which ling’ring penance/ Of such misery doth she cut me off. (4.1.165-270)

DRAMATIC IRONY

Antonio, I am married to a wife/…Here to this devil, to deliver you. (4.1.280-285)

DRAMATIC IRONY

I have a wife who I protest I love;/ I would she were in heaven, so she could/ Entreat some power to change this currish Jew. (4.1.288-290)

DRAMATIC IRONY

I pray you know me when we meet again. (4.1.417)

DRAMATIC IRONY

There’s more depends on this than on the value./The dearest ring in Venice will I give you,/ And find it out by proclamation. /Only for this I pray you pardon me. (4.1.432-435)

Merchant of Venice: Literary Devices and Techniques: Act V

Device Quotation Meaning And SignificanceALLUSIONPERSONIFICATION

The moon shines bright. In such a night as this,/ When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees, / And they did make no noise in such a night/ Toilus methinks mounted the Troyan walls/ And sigh’d his soul toward the Grecian tents/ Where Cressid lay that night. (5.1.3-6)

PERSONIFICATION How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!/ Here we will sit, and let the sounds of music / Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night? Become the touches of sweet harmony. (5.1.54-57)

PUN Let me give light, but let me not be light, /For a light

wife doth make a heavy husband, / And never be Bassanio so for me-/ But God sort all! (5.1.129-132)

DRAMATIC IRONY Now by this hand, I gave it to a youth,/ A kind of boy, a little scrubbed boy/ No higher than thyself, the judge’s clerk, A prating boy that begg’d it as a fee;/ I could not for my heart deny it him. (5.1.161-165)

DRAMATIC IRONY I gave my love a ring, and made him swear/ Never to part with it, and here he stands. (5.1.170-171)

DRAMATIC IRONY If you did know whom I have the ring,/If you did know for whom I gave the ring,/ And would conceive for what I have the ring..You would abate the strength of your displeasure. (5.1.193-198)

DRAMATIC IRONY Let not that doctor e’er come near my house./… I will become as liberal as you;/ I’ll not deny him anything I have,/ No, not my body, not my husband’s bed:/ Know him I shall I am well sure of it. (5.1.223-229)

DRAMATIC IRONY I had it of him; pardon me, Bassanio,/ For by this ring the doctor lay with me./…For that same scrubbed biy the doctor’s clerk,/ In lieu of this did lie with me. (5.1.257-262)

SIMILE Why , this is like the mending of highways/ In summer where the ways are fair enough! (5.1.263-264)

METAPHOR Fair ladies, you drop manna in the way / Of starved people(5.1.294-295)

PUN Well, while I live I’ll fear no other thing/ So sore as keeping safe Nerissa’s ring. (5.1.306-307)