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
History of the Shakespeare authorship question that now-lost plays may have served as models for Shakespeare's published work, such as, for example, the "ur-Hamlet", an earlier version of Shakespeare's play of that name. In Benjamin Disraeli's novel "Venetia" (1837) the character Lord Cadurcis, modelled on Byron, questions whether Shakespeare wrote "half of the plays attributed to him", or even one "whole play" but rather that he was "an inspired adapter for the theatres". A similar view was expressed by an American lawyer and writer, Col. Joseph C. Hart, who in 1848 published "The Romance of Yachting", which for the first time asserted explicitly and unequivocally in