Jessica (The Merchant of Venice) "Il Pecorone" () and Richard Robinson's English translation of the "Gesta Romanorum" (1577), but neither of these contain the Jessica–Lorenzo plot, nor give their Shylock-analogues a daughter. For these elements Shakespeare probably mined Masuccio Salernitano's "Il Novellino" (1476) and Christopher Marlowe's "The Jew of Malta" (). In the 14th story of "Il Novellino" we have most of the elements of the Jessica–Lorenzo plot: a daughter guarded by a rich but miserly father; the lovers eloping with her father's gold and jewels; the father's despair, in equal measures, for the loss of both daughter and treasure; and the lovers' eventual marriage
Jessica (The Merchant of Venice) actions amount to abandoning her father and betraying him to his enemies. By the last half of the 20th century this "sentimentally sympathetic reading" was starting to be rejected, but without a corresponding reassessment of Jessica. She was still viewed as inhabiting primarily negative values, in contrast with the positive values associated with Portia, Bassanio, and Antonio. Writing in 1977, Raymond B. Waddington thinks that: Slights contradicts this view, pointing out that it conflicts with "a natural audience response" and argues that "we must question judgments that deny the most obvious emotional force of Shakespearean plots and characters." Shakespeare's plays