Lincoln and Shakespeare

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks, Roger, the quote just came to my mind, but I wasn't aware it referred to exactly this play. Odd just that "The Merchant of Venice" is mostly classified as a comedy - a problem comedy though. However, it lacks the main criterion/feature of a tragedy - the protagonist being a hero who suffers ruin or extreme sorrow (and usually dies in the end) and in the course of this undergoes a character development and gains insight as for mistakes, faults, etc, while several "technical" comedy features occur.