The Merchant Of Venice -- Historical Context -- Literary Companion Series

Problem plays:

• Much Ado About Nothing
• Measure for Measure
• The Merchant Of Venice

Two worlds:

• Belmont: beauty, mythical, classical, fairyland, on land, outside of Venice
  
• Venice: dirty, real, money, ugly competition

Three rings:

• Portia: wealthy
• Nerissa: Portia's lady-in-waiting
• Jessica: Shylock's daughter 

Triple goddesses (p. 121)

• Portia: wealthy
• Nerissa: Portia's lady-in-waiting
• Jessica: Shylock's daughter
  

Five plots, two are major.

• Bassanio to choose the correct casket to win Portia's hand (major);
• Antonio, to borrow 3,000 ducats (from Shylock) to impress Portia (major);
  
• Lorenzo eloping with Jessica, Shylock's daughter
• the problem of the rings
• Launcelot Gobbo: possibly a fifth plot; exchanging his job with Shylock for a job with Bassanio

Time:

• two major plots; had to run concurrently;
• had to start and finish at the same time

Connection to Queen Elizabeth, from wiki:

Anthony Bassano was a 16th-century Italian musician. Bassano, born in Bassano del Grappa, Italy, was one of six sons of Jeronimo Bassano (Anthony, Jacomo, Alvise, Jasper, John and Baptista) who moved from Venice to England to the household of Henry VIII to serve the court, probably in 1540.

Of his ten children, the five sons (Mark Anthony, Arthur, Edward, Andrea and Jeronimo) all served as musicians to the court of Henry VIII, and a daughter (Lucreece Bassano) married Nicholas Lanier the Elder, grandfather of the artist-musician Nicholas Lanier.

The historian A.L. Rowse in his correspondence to The Times in 1973 claimed that the Bassanos were Jewish and Dr. David Lasocki of Indiana University claimed in his 1995 book that the family were converted Jews. However, Giulio M. Ongaro in his "New Documents on the Bassano Family" in Early Music and Alessio Ruffatti (who did research in the archives of Bassano del Grappa assisted by Professor Pier Cesare Ioly Zorattini both argued that the Bassanos who moved to England were not of Jewish origin.

Besides being wind players in the King's band, the Bassanos were also instrument makers.  Anthony was recorded as a foreigner, formerly Queen Elizabeth's musician, resident in the London parish of St Olave and All Hallows Staining, in 1607. He was married with ten children, all born in England.