The Merchant of Venice has long been regarded as one influential comedy by William Shakespeare. And it is through Shylock’s tragic ending that this play receives a widespread popularity from the world. But for Shylock

this play is not a comedy. Aristotle gives his philosophical analysis about tragedies in Poetics. Many literary critics resort to Aristotle when analyzing Shakespeare’s tragedies. But The Merchant of Venice is not one of them. Thus

the combination of Aristotle’s theory of tragedy and The Merchant of Venice may offer some new perspectives in the study of The Merchant of Venice. According to Aristotle

a main character’s reversal is inevitable in the making of a tragedy. Besides

the fate of a tragic hero could also help define a play as a tragedy or not. Putting Shylock in Aristotle’s standards of tragedy

his reversal of fate proves that there exist tragic colors in the so-called comedy.