The Merchant of Venice "The Merchant of Venice". His play "Shylock", first performed at the Théâtre de l'Odéon in December 1889, had incidental music by the French composer Gabriel Fauré, later incorporated into an orchestral suite of the same name. Ralph Vaughan Williams' choral work "Serenade to Music" (1938) draws its text from the discussion about music and the music of the spheres in Act V, scene 1. In both versions of the comic film "To Be or Not to Be" (1942 and 1983) the character "Greenberg", specified as a Jew in the later version, gives a recitation of the "Hath Not a Jew
Jessica (The Merchant of Venice) and classical comedies, who are only fit to be dupes of their children …." The first critical notice of Jessica in the 18th century was made by William Warburton, who commented on the line in Act 5, Scene 1: "Fair ladies, you drop manna in the way / Of starvèd people." Warburton's comment was that ""Shakespear" is not more exact in any thing, than in adapting his images with propriety to his speakers; of which he has here given an instance in making the young "Jewess" call good fortune, "Manna"." Unfortunately, as Samuel Johnson explains rather drily—in a note to