Shakespere's the Merchant of Venice

Excerpt from Shakespere's the Merchant of Venice: Edited With Notes and Introduction by Francis B. Gummere, Ph.D The Merchant of Venice is one of those books which are to be studied, - mastered by dint of hard work, and made to serve the ends of mental discipline, as well as to lure the pupil into a love of good reading. The present editor has tried to help teacher and pupil in their work, and has kept his eye neither on intellectual beer and skit tles, nor yet on that pretty pretence of labor which takes all (subjective) knowledge for its province and seeks to train the mind by the example of Mr. Brooke of Middle march. Since the Introduction was written, these words of Professor Dowden have come under the editor's notice, and should be added to the Suggestions for Teachers: Some persons seem to fear that a close attention to textual difficulties, conjectural emendations, obsolete words, allusions to manners and customs, and suchlike, will quench an interest in the higher meanings of the play. I have not found it so (on the Teaching of Eng lish Literature, New Studies in Literature, p. No editor of Shakspere, however humble his desire, or however ambitious, can close his work without a word of thanks to Dr. Furness for the manifold help afiorded by. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.