Plautus hathAmphytrio. But, if we mark them well, we shall find that they never, or very daintily, match hornpipes and funerals.
However, Shakespeare and other playwrights quickly showed that Sidney’s view was not entirely correct. One could, if one were a great playwright, quite elegantly and masterfully blend elements of comedy and tragedy together to create a splendid work of dramatic literature. A convention and insight that may have been reasonable and applicable to 1582 was no longer quite so relevant in 1596. Sidney established a convention, and later Shakespeare (among others) brokeit.
These two aspects ofThe Merchant ofVenice– the tragic and the comic – are also the result of the play havingtwo central plotsor stories. Shakespeare is not generally regarded by many critics as a creator of great stories because he borrowed extensively from other tales and historical events – in that sense, he was not entirely original. Rather these critics praise Shakespeare for (1) the magnificence of hischaracterizationand (2) the beauty of hispoetry. However, today’s reader should not be so quick to dismiss the genius that underliesShakespeare’splots. Although Shakespeare did indeed in many of his plays borrow from othersources, he took separate and diverse elementsfromthosesourcesandweavedthem