Are your 10th graders really understanding Shakespeare's language--in a way that will be transferable to other plays, or are they just getting the gist of what's going on? This passage identification and vocabulary test is designed to encourage "close encounters" with the text of The Merchant of Venice.

Test on Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Acts I-IV

(originally created for a 10^th grade English class, to encourage close reading of the text)

Part One: Passage identification. Select five out of the six passages. For each, indicate a) the speaker, b) the addressee(s), c) the context, and d) answer the additional questions.

1) Myself, and what is mine, to you and yours

Is now converted. But now I was the lord

Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,

Queen o’er myself; and even now, but now,

This house, these servants, and this same myself

Are yours, my lord’s.

d) Explain the speaker’s special choice of words in this passage (especially those that I have underlined). What do these words suggest about the quality of love described in the passage?

2) . . . When I told you

My state was nothing, I should then have told you

That I was worse than nothing; for indeed

I have engaged myself to a dear friend,

Engaged my friend to his mere enemy

To feed my means. Here is a letter, lady,

The paper as the body of my friend,

And every word in it a gaping wound

Issuing lifeblood.

d) Explain the simile in the last three lines (“paper as the body”). How are these lines also an example of foreshadowing?

3) If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions.

d) Paraphrase this passage, including the underlined words.

4) . . . I have heard

Your Grace hath ta’en great pains to qualify

His rigorous course; but since he stands obdurate,

And that no lawful means can carry me

Out of his envy’s reach, I do oppose

My patience to his fury, and am armed

To suffer with a quietness of spirit

The very tyranny and rage of his.

d) To what contrast does the speaker refer? What is the speaker’s tone?

5) _______________, many a time and oft

In the Rialto you have rated me

About my moneys and my usances:

Still I have borne it with a patient shrug,

For suff’rance is the badge of all our tribe.

d) Explain the last line. How does this passage contribute to our understanding of the speaker?

6) I am glad ‘tis night, you do not look on me,

For I am much ashamed of my exchange,

But love is blind, and lovers cannot see

The pretty follies that themselves commit,

For if they could, Cupid himself would blush

To see me thus transformed to a boy.

d) What is the “exchange” that the speaker referring to here? How does this passage relate to a central theme of the play?

Part II: Vocabulary. For each of the following statements, answer “True, because . . . .” or “False, because . . . .” Your answer should demonstrate your understanding of the underlined word and the play.

6) The plot of the play stems from the conflict between Christian and Jewish attitudes toward usury.

7) When Bassanio is skeptical of Shylock’s offer to lend 3000 ducats interest free, the moneylender accuses Bassanio of unfairly impugning his motives.

8) Forbearance, along with resignation, is a characteristic of Antonio, the merchant of Venice.

9) Bassanio admits that he was guilty of prodigality during his youth.

10) Jessica refuses to forswear her religious faith.

11) Bassanio rushes back to Venice to commiserate with his dear friend Antonio.

12) As the court scene opens, Antonio importunes the Duke to release him from his bond.

13) Gratiano expresses Venetian malice toward Shylock in the court scene.

14) Shylock is reduced to abject poverty by the ruling of the Venetian court.

15) One can infer from the play that a difference in religion was often an impediment to marriage in Renaissance Venice.