a long history of persecution. A brief historical analysis of Jewish and Christian relations in England reveals a general anti-Semitic attitude towards the outnumbered Jews. A drastic example of this negative feeling is King Edward the First's expulsion of the Jews in 1290 which staged a virtual mass deportation of Jews from England. For the next three hundred sixty six years, the Jewish population dramatically decreased to a few hundreds until the reinstatement of Jews back into England in 1656 by Oliver Cromwell. Still, anti-Semitic feelings were strong as illustrated by the popularity of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice as well as Marlow's drama The Jew of Malta. Shakespeare, taking advantage of the public's anti-Jewish feelings, "borrowed" ideas from his fellow playwright Marlow and designed the character of Shylock. This proved to be advantageous since the play achieved much success and Shakespeare was a major shareholder of his theatrical company (2). Shakespeare's play was popular not only because it was a well written copyright infringement, but it gave the audience what they wanted. Another example of the popularity of Shakespeare's play due to its anti-Semitic undertones i
             ...