Merchant of Venice enjoys a dualistic interpretation from history. It either accurately represents Shylock as a shrewd Jewish banker, or rallies against antisemitism through its humanized portrait of the aforementioned character. The interpretive breadth of Shakespeare’s plays allow for either, and the historical tradition of reformatting his plays to fit contemporary beliefs adds further complexity to their performances and readings. However, the defense of Shakespeare’s plays as conceptually coherent in any time period reveals a sycophancy dependent on preserving a ‘great Western author,’ ignoring the original intent and the play’s potential to stigmatize. The 1930-1960 time period demonstrates the collapse of this dependence through the local absence of Merchant of Venice in the NYC area, and the prevalence of it internationally with the Nazi regime. Merchant of Venice’s absence - or fewer archival examples during this time period - elucidates the realization of Shakespeare’s authorial dependence on his temporality, and the collapse of the Shakespeare-centric social machine.
	The Nazi fascination with Shakespeare revolves around his posited genius as the premier modern Western author, or the progenitor of the white Western literary tradition. The Merchant of Venice enjoyed extreme popularity in Nazi Germany, with about 20 separate productions in 1933, and at least another 30 in between 1934-1939. Reviews about these plays focused on Shylock’s immoral character, or how Shakespeare’s theatrical genius permitted him to fool the audience to at first have sympathy for Shylock, only to reveal in the later acts his intrinsic faults. This interpretation while obviously biased, does demonstrate the potential for Merchant of Venice to be used as a propaganda technique. Shakespeare’s 16th century character, one obviously steeped with historic anti semitism, stays relevant and ‘authentic’ under the assumption that Shakespeare possessed a perpetual genius. 
	Shakespeare’s original intent matters significantly less than its interpretive significance. The academic dedication to Shakespeare - and the capricious nature of performing a play rather than simply reading - renders his catalog flexible. Directors, however, showed hesitance in performing Merchant of Venice specifically during a time period fueled by the extremes of Shakespeare’s Jewish critique. The World War II period ushered in the question of whether the normative depiction of Merchant of Venice contributed to anti semitism. Even if defenders of Shakespeare believe his portrayal of a Jewish character to be humanized to an extent where performances are permissible and possibly helpful to Jewish populations, Shakespeare’s written word obviously possesses a sort of anxiety surrounding Shylock which made a previously popular play uncomfortable to view.
	Prior to World War II, or the escalation or anti semitic propaganda, Merchant of Venice enjoyed plentiful theatrical showings and numerous defenses from critics. The sheer number of showings of Merchant of Venice during the 1890 - 1920 time period demonstrates its popularity with audiences and directors alike. Reception towards them indicates that most audiences elicited a similar reaction; Shylock’s character generally received the most attention, with numerous ads including a mention of a ‘popular’ actor portraying him to highlight his importance. While usually favored for his complexity, Shylock’s posited authenticity in grappling with his ‘humanized’ traits and religious position reveals a natural bias -- reviewers, likely drawing from their Christian convictions, expect Shylock to be in conflict, as being ‘Jewish’ and ‘morally upstanding’ seem partially exclusive. 
