In Shylock and the Jewish Question, Yaffe challenges the widespread assumption that Shakespeare is, in the final analysis, unfriendly to Jews. Emphasizing that The Merchant of Venice is a work of political philosophy as well as literature, Yaffe raises the intriguing possibility that Shakespeare presents Shylock not as a typical Jew, but as a bad one. He finds that Shakespeare's consideration of Judaism in The Merchant of Venice provides an important contrast to Marlowe's virulent The Jew of Malta.