Where does one begin with The Merchant of Venice? Is it a wholly antisemitic play or is it a condemnation of its Elizabethan audience? The play centers on Bassanio and Antonio (our titular merchant of Venice). Bassanio has fallen for Portia and needs money to woo her. He asks Antonio for a loan but Antonio is broke so they both approach Shylock, the local moneylender. Shylock agrees to give Bassanio the loan but makes the stipulation that if it is not paid back on time then Shylock is allowed to take a pound of Antonio's flesh. Y'know, a perfectly normal thing to ask for. Shylock is probably Shakespeare's most controversial characters. He is portrayed as Jewish and ticks the boxes of every single Jewish stereotype. He's greedy, curmudgeonly, power hungry, and rude. 
 The Merchant of Venice was written as a comedy and thus we are meant to laugh at and taunt greedy old Shylock. Modern audiences (and I) really don't see Shylock as a comic character anymore. I read Shylock as a tragic hero. His 'if you prick us do we not bleed' speech is one of Shakespeare's greatest and (I think anyway) shows the reader that Shakespeare also views Shylock as a tragic hero. I could write a whole thesis on Shylock and my opinions but I must keep it short. The Merchant of Venice is, for me, one of Shakespeare's best plays. In fact, you could get rid of every character and just have Shylock soliloquising on stage and it would still be a masterpiece. The overall structure of the play does irk me slightly, I mean, the final act is utterly redundant and assumes that we actually care about Jessica and Portia's storylines. But I can overlook these qualms.