Jonathan's Shakespeare Review

-The Jewish Ghetto: The pleasant neighborhood for the Jewish community of Venice recognized by Shakespeare in his play The Merchant of Venice.

-Romeo and Juliet balcony: The fictional balcony from Shakespeare’s famous tragedy Romeo and Juliet.

-Curia of Pompey: The speculated site of Julius Caesar’s assassination made famous by Shakespeare in his play Julius Caesar.

I selected these sites mainly due to the limitations of Shakespeare’s works in Italy. Although Italy was full of many breathtaking sites there were very few areas that our group visited that Shakespeare acknowledged during his plays. Nevertheless, these sites were equally important for Shakespeare to accuracy portray Italian cultures to an unfamiliar Elizabethan audience.

From my experience, Shakespeare’s representation of Italy was very accurate in the plays that we read up until our visit. It is clear that he had a very good understanding of the Italian culture. Of course, there is much debate of how he gained his understanding but in this occasion the final outcome is all that matters. Despite the significant time difference in the days of Shakespeare’s representation and my experience, I would say that the spirit of cultural tensions between the Jewish and Italian communities is still an issue. This observation is due to the fact that the only Jewish people I noticed in Italy was during my brief visit to the Jewish Ghetto in Venice.

Witnessing these selected sites and understanding their history gave me a different perspective than I had imagined while reading the plays. The facts of Shakespeare’s plays might have not been completely accurate. Yet during the visitation of each of these sites, the visualization of these historical landmarks became almost real in the sense that during the reading I pictured a more fairy tale type image of how these sites were actually constructed.