The Merchant of Venice know not why I am so sad" – and utter devotion to Bassanio has led some critics to theorise that he is suffering from unrequited love for Bassanio and is depressed because Bassanio is coming to an age where he will marry a woman. In his plays and poetry Shakespeare often depicted strong male bonds of varying homosociality, which has led some critics to infer that Bassanio returns Antonio's affections despite his obligation to marry: In his essay "Brothers and Others", published in "The Dyer's Hand," W. H. Auden describes Antonio as "a man whose emotional life, though his conduct
The London Merchant to the change in comedy made by Richard Steele's "The Conscious Lovers", a play that refined sensibility in comedy and depicted the middle class as modern gentry "The London Merchant" asserts the ethics of the merchant, creating Thorowgood as a character who exemplifies all of the desired values that a merchant should have. While exchange and trade are important issues to the merchant, they are also key factors in the text itself as they become metaphors throughout the play. Imperial commerce was growing in the eighteenth century, and Thorowgood describes this phenomenon as a circulation throughout the world. For example,