Characters
- Antonio – a merchant of Venice
- Bassanio – Antonio's friend, in love with Portia; suitor likewise to her
- Gratiano, Solanio, Salarino, Salerio – friends of Antonio and Bassanio
- Lorenzo – friend of Antonio and Bassanio, in love with Jessica
- Portia – a rich heiress
- Nerissa – Portia's waiting maid- in love with Gratiano
- Balthazar – Portia's disguise as a lawyer
- Stephano – Nerissa's disguise as Balthazar's law clerk.
- Shylock – a rich Jew, moneylender, father of Jessica
- Tubal – a Jew; Shylock's friend
- Jessica – daughter of Shylock, in love with Lorenzo
- Launcelot Gobbo – a foolish man in the service of Shylock
- Old Gobbo – father of Launcelot
- Leonardo – servant to Bassanio
- Duke of Venice – Venetian authority who presides over the case of Shylock's bond
- Prince of Morocco – suitor to Portia
- Prince of Arragon – suitor to Portia
- Magnificoes of Venice, officers of the Court of Justice, Gaoler, servants to Portia, and other Attendants
Read more about this topic: The Merchant Of Venice
Famous quotes containing the word characters:
“I have often noticed that after I had bestowed on the characters of my novels some treasured item of my past, it would pine away in the artificial world where I had so abruptly placed it.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“It is open to question whether the highly individualized characters we find in Shakespeare are perhaps not detrimental to the dramatic effect. The human being disappears to the same degree as the individual emerges.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“I make it a kind of pious rule to go to every funeral to which I am invited, both as I wish to pay a proper respect to the dead, unless their characters have been bad, and as I would wish to have the funeral of my own near relations or of myself well attended.”
—James Boswell (1740–1795)