Jessica (The Merchant of Venice) Jessica (The Merchant of Venice) Jessica is the daughter of Shylock, a Jewish moneylender, in William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" (). In the play, she elopes with Lorenzo, a pennyless Christian, and a chest of her father's money, eventually ending up in Portia and Bassanio's household. In the play's dramatic structure, Jessica is a minor but pivotal role. Her actions motivate Shylock's vengeful insistence on his "pound of flesh" from Antonio; her relationships with Lorenzo and Shylock serves as a mirror and contrast to Portia's with Bassanio and with her father; her conversion to Christianity is the end of
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