Theatrical Connections
The limited survival of historical materials prevents certainty on matters of dramatic influence and interconnection; yet many critics have seen relationships among a set of Elizabethan plays on the subjects of Jews and usury in this historical era. In this view, The Three Ladies of London may have been a response to the prior anonymous lost play The Jew (1579 or earlier), which portrayed the conventional social attitude toward "the bloody minds of usurers." Three Ladies is thought to have prompted a hostile response in another anonymous lost play, London Against the Three Ladies (c. 1582). In turn, these plays influenced the important later plays on the subject, like Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta. It has been argued that The Jew may have influenced Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. Wilson's play itself has been perceived as, if not a source, then an "analogue" of Shakespeare's play.
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