With the field of Shakespeare criticism now in its fifth century, it is understandable that at times it can come to look a little weary. The last time this happened, new historicism appeared with a persuasive marriage of sociopolitical contexts and literary texts that provided critics with a whole new thematic palette. But that that was over two decades ago, and many are wondering whether what once reenergized the field has finally come to raze it—even as the net quantity of the world's Shakespeariana continues to grow exponentially, the plays are seemingly chased into evermore historically prescriptive alleyways. What is the benefit of conceiving of literature as an analogy for historical events when the most essential element of literary study, interpretation, seems to be increasingly out of vogue? New interpretive voices are starting to be heard, though no single school has yet emerged to rally dissenters beneath its banner. In Kenneth Gross's remarkable Shylock Is Shakespeare, however, we have a one-man commando assault on the critical orthodoxy of the past twenty years.

Describing the methodology of Gross's book is difficult, save to say that it is a philosophical rumination born on the overdetermined and intertextual fluidity of Shakespeare's Jew, an extended piece of character criticism that treats Shylock as a portal extending through Venice and beyond. The title says it all: Shylock is an invention of complex singularity, “a piece of fissionable material” (13), an ethnic and linguistic anomaly, with a metatheatrical sense of his own and a profound insight into his anachronism. He is “a form of knowledge as well as a lie, not just shorthand for moneylender or Jew, but a name for a way of being, a certain relation to the past” (7), one that is far too potent to be folded into a simple theme of Law tempered by Mercy. In all his multiple and battling identities, none of them resolvable into an imaginable whole that might be reconciled to a single interpretive view, contends Gross, Shakespeare has written himself.

The argument is made over fourteen relatively short chapters, which largely take their cues from a theme or incident specific to The Merchant of Venice that is then opened out into larger questions of identity and representation potentially boundless in scope. Much of the material is conventional: the chapters on “bonds” and “exchanges,” for example, the basic units of legal and capitalistic interaction forming the play, are near perfect examples of the well-tempered literary-critical essay. But the real interest of the volume lies in the material that is much less orthodox, which includes not only a dream sequence but a prominent series of creative passages in which Gross allows himself to ventriloquize the playwright's thoughts. In this example, Shakespeare considers the “bond” he has with his audience:

It is a fascinating idea, and a pleasure to observe, for in this unapologetically literary and passionate work, our interest is carried entirely by the author's considerable powers of argument and interpretation. But the big question, of course, is “why Shylock?” Why not Hamlet, Prospero, Coriolanus, or Lear? Why not even Falstaff, Imogen, or Lady Macbeth? Gross's frequent discussion of Timon suggests that even he sees that the affinities might overlap. True, Shylock's Jewishness makes his exclusion inalienable, whereas the alienation of the others is largely elective, but then why not Othello? His alterity flowers in exotic language, and he has the additional qualities of lover and fighter, topics with which Shakespeare was absorbed from first to last. The question goes straight to the methodological heart of Gross's book and will give more systematic thinkers reason to disregard the work, as ultimately, his characterization of Shakespeare is based on an entirely personal reading of a unique and inaccessible individual. Gross's Shakespeare is an Old Testament heavyweight, a misanthrope, egregious by the fact of his genius. Yet to my ear, he sounds more like Samuel Beckett's Malone or Saul Bellow's Herzog than any version of Shakespeare I have ever imagined. (Mine would be called “Shakespeare Is Rosalind”—playful, a runaway, a bit kinky but ultimately conventional—though on second thought, perhaps “Shakespeare Is a Multitude” would be a safer bet.)

The essay on Philip Roth's Operation Shylock seems like an afterthought, and some will also be put off by Gross's use of critics, a motley gang that includes solid old-timers like G. Wilson Knight, W. H. Auden, and Northrop Frye, although others will understand that perceptive criticism is always worth reading irrespective of trends. Others will admit that to an extent, any act of criticism is an act of self-reflection, and in this sense, Shylock Is Shakespeare is compelling and honest. There should be much more literary criticism like it: bold, contentious, and speculative, it brims with ideas. Highly recommended.