You're learning about how people thought and felt during the 16th century, and about how those people related to both their fellow man and the past (ie. Julius Ceasar). There's quite a bit to learn in Shakespeare, you just gotta be able to read between the lines.
At least there was injustice highlighted in Dickens.
Shylock the Jew wants a pound of flesh, in any interpretation of the work, teaches you nothing except Shakespeare was just another man of his times, who said words goodly.
Shylock wanted much more than just a pound of flesh. Shylock was very clear about the injustices that had been committed against him. The famous "hath not a Jew hands" speech is far more than just an incidental "Oh, yeah, antisemitism" add-on to the play. Shylock's plight is complex and real, not just a cardboard villain. There is a passing reference to his wife, who had given him the ring that his daughter stole, and it's utterly heartbreaking.
The play is actually quite sympathetic to Shylock, even if none of the other characters are. Antonio is no more a cardboard hero than Shylock is a cardboard villain. Neither is Portia, for that matter -- who is herself struggling with the injustice of her father controlling her from beyond the grave, marrying her off almost by lottery. The play is of its time, to be sure, but the people then were just as complex and conflicted as we are now, and a good performance of it today isn't easily dismissed as "look at the awful way people behaved 400 years ago".
Shakespeare was actually empathetic enough to have called out across the centuries to very different people, as well as being supreme in his use of words and ideas.
There is nothing "just another man of his times" about him.
--
He wrote it for me.
"When in disgrace with fortune in men's eyes /
I all alone beweep my outcast state /
and trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries /
and look upon myself and curse my fate /
wishing me like to one more rich in hope /
featured like him, like him with friends possessed /
desiring this man's art and that man's scope /
with what I most enjoy contented least. . . ."
Of course he wrote it for me; that is a condition of the black woman. Of course, he was a black woman. I understand that. Nobody else understands it, but I know that William Shakespeare was a black woman.
If you read other plays of the era with Jewish characters, like Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta (where the eponymous villain is a cartoon caricature), then you might better understand why there is room for nuance with Shakespeare’s depiction of Shylock compared to his contemporaries.
Really? It doesn't teach us how the English (or Shakespeare writing to the English) thought about the Jews and their role in society? Cause I'd suggest it does. Just because the portrayal doesn't align with our modern values doesn't mean it has no value. How do we know what a "man of his times" would think without these works?
I had similar thoughts when I read the Old Testament - whether or not you believe that all of it is true (and, incidentally, there’s a lot less that’s hard to believe is/was true than you might think unless you’ve actually read it), it’s a fascinating and amazingly preserved anthropological look into ancient, ancient life.
Exactly. It lets you get into the mind of the narrator, and think about what they are saying and why. A really great old testament example of that is comparing Samuel and Kings to Chronicles - they are recounting the sam-ish time and place, but coming at it from totally different angles.
Had to fight off with this very argument when people kept suggesting that I don't need to read the Old Testament before getting to the Revelation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19955193
