Mirror of Shylock

Extract

There are certain characters of Shakespeare that assert their right to exist from the moment they come into view. They rear up and walk; they talk with unmistakable rhythm and inflection; they look you in the eye with the assurance of freedom, dignity, even defiance; they measure your worth against their own. They thrust and elbow and insinuate their way through the action, which they conduct in their own time; they are sometimes jeeringly aware of this characteristic tempo of theirs, as when crook-back Richard Gloster declares: “… and leave the world for me to bustle in.” The verb is precise in describing Richard's political energy, his impatience, his restless and gleeful egotism! You might even say, come Bosworth Field, that he has bustled himself to death. Or Juliet's nurse; it's not enough to say she lives, she gasps and heaves through the action; she sputters, rails, purrs and betrays.