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1
Nuxt.js Succinctly
By
Ed Freitas
Foreword by Daniel Jebaraj
 Copyright © 2022 by Syncfusion, Inc.

2501 Aerial Center Parkway

Suite 200
Morrisville, NC 27560
USA
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-64200-225-6

Important licensing information. Please read.

This book is available for free download from www.syncfusion.com on completion of a

registration form.

If you obtained this book from any other source, please register and download a free copy from
www.syncfusion.com.

This book is licensed for reading only if obtained from www.syncfusion.com.

This book is licensed strictly for personal or educational use.

Redistribution in any form is prohibited.

The authors and copyright holders provide absolutely no warranty for any information provided.

The authors and copyright holders shall not be liable for any claim, damages, or any other
liability arising from, out of, or in connection with the information in this book.

Please do not use this book if the listed terms are unacceptable.

Use shall constitute acceptance of the terms listed.

SYNCFUSION, SUCCINCTLY, DELIVER INNOVATION WITH EASE, ESSENTIAL, and .NET

ESSENTIALS are the registered trademarks of Syncfusion, Inc.

Technical Reviewer: James McCaffrey

Copy Editor: Courtney Wright
Acquisitions Coordinator: Tres Watkins, VP of content, Syncfusion, Inc.
Proofreader: Jacqueline Bieringer, content producer, Syncfusion, Inc.

3
 Table of Contents

The Story behind the Succinctly Series of Books ................................................................. 7

About the Author ..................................................................................................................... 9

Acknowledgments ..................................................................................................................10

Introduction .............................................................................................................................11

Chapter 1 Getting Started ......................................................................................................12

Client-side vs. server-side rendering ....................................................................................12

Nuxt.js server-side rendering ................................................................................................14

Installing Node.js ..................................................................................................................15

Getting started with Nuxt.js ...................................................................................................19

Summary ..............................................................................................................................22

Chapter 2 Project Structure...................................................................................................23

Initial project structure ..........................................................................................................23

Create Nuxt app ...................................................................................................................24

Project structure (create-nuxt-app) .......................................................................................30

Summary ..............................................................................................................................31

Chapter 3 App Foundations ..................................................................................................32

Getting started ......................................................................................................................32

Pages folder .........................................................................................................................32

Installing Bootstrap ...............................................................................................................34

Components folder ...............................................................................................................36

Navbar component ...............................................................................................................36

FavList component ...............................................................................................................39

Initial objects ........................................................................................................................41

Books UI...............................................................................................................................42

4
 Favorites button....................................................................................................................44

Summary ..............................................................................................................................48

Chapter 4 Client Logic ...........................................................................................................49

Overview ..............................................................................................................................49

Add to favorites method........................................................................................................49

Click event binding ...............................................................................................................50

Moving the Favorites list .......................................................................................................54

Refactoring index.vue ...........................................................................................................54

FavList.vue ...........................................................................................................................58

Executing the app.................................................................................................................61

Summary ..............................................................................................................................63

Chapter 5 Firebase .................................................................................................................64

Overview ..............................................................................................................................64

Getting started with Firebase ................................................................................................64

Adding data ..........................................................................................................................70

Connecting the app to Firebase............................................................................................72

Installing the Firebase SDK ..................................................................................................74

Summary ..............................................................................................................................74

Chapter 6 Server Logic ..........................................................................................................75

Overview ..............................................................................................................................75

Server logic ..........................................................................................................................75

Understanding the server logic .............................................................................................77

Optimizing the server logic ...................................................................................................79

Retrieving data from Firebase ..............................................................................................81

Lazy loading .........................................................................................................................86

Building and generating ........................................................................................................88

5
Deployment ..........................................................................................................................90

Complete app code ..............................................................................................................90

Next steps and final thoughts ...............................................................................................98

6
 The Story behind the Succinctly Series
of Books
Daniel Jebaraj, CEO
Syncfusion, Inc.
taying on the cutting edge

S As many of you may know, Syncfusion is a provider of software components for the
Microsoft platform. This puts us in the exciting but challenging position of always
being on the cutting edge.

Whenever platforms or tools are shipping out of Microsoft, which seems to be about
every other week these days, we have to educate ourselves, quickly.

Information is plentiful but harder to digest

In reality, this translates into a lot of book orders, blog searches, and Twitter scans.

While more information is becoming available on the Internet and more and more books are
being published, even on topics that are relatively new, one aspect that continues to inhibit us is
the inability to find concise technology overview books.

We are usually faced with two options: read several 500+ page books or scour the web for
relevant blog posts and other articles. Just as everyone else who has a job to do and customers
to serve, we find this quite frustrating.

The Succinctly series

This frustration translated into a deep desire to produce a series of concise technical books that
would be targeted at developers working on the Microsoft platform.

We firmly believe, given the background knowledge such developers have, that most topics can
be translated into books that are between 50 and 100 pages.

This is exactly what we resolved to accomplish with the Succinctly series. Isn’t everything
wonderful born out of a deep desire to change things for the better?

The best authors, the best content

Each author was carefully chosen from a pool of talented experts who shared our vision. The
book you now hold in your hands, and the others available in this series, are a result of the
authors’ tireless work. You will find original content that is guaranteed to get you up and running
in about the time it takes to drink a few cups of coffee.

Free forever
Syncfusion will be working to produce books on several topics. The books will always be free.
Any updates we publish will also be free.

7
Free? What is the catch?
There is no catch here. Syncfusion has a vested interest in this effort.

As a component vendor, our unique claim has always been that we offer deeper and broader
frameworks than anyone else on the market. Developer education greatly helps us market and
sell against competing vendors who promise to “enable AJAX support with one click,” or “turn
the moon to cheese!”

Let us know what you think

If you have any topics of interest, thoughts, or feedback, please feel free to send them to us at
[email protected].

We sincerely hope you enjoy reading this book and that it helps you better understand the topic
of study. Thank you for reading.

Please follow us on Twitter and “Like” us on Facebook to help us spread the

word about the Succinctly series!

8
 About the Author

Ed Freitas is a consultant on business process automation and a software developer focused on

customer success.

He likes technology and enjoys learning, playing soccer, running, traveling, and being around
his family.

Ed is available at https://edfreitas.me.

9
 Acknowledgments

A huge thank you to the fantastic Syncfusion team that helped this book become a reality—
especially Jacqueline Bieringer, Tres Watkins, and Graham High.

The manuscript manager and technical editor thoroughly reviewed the book's organization,
code quality, and overall accuracy—Jacqueline Bieringer from Syncfusion and James
McCaffrey from Microsoft Research. Thank you both.

I dedicate this book to my dear Uncle Tony, who recently passed away. A veteran, he devoted
his life to his loved ones, his beloved country—the United States of America—and his work.

He performed his work with utmost passion, integrity, and with a smile; he never missed a day,
and he always gave his best to his customers and anyone who sought his wisdom and advice.
Your love, character, and everything you did will always remain with everyone you loved. Rest
in peace.

This book is also dedicated to the all the victims of international aggression and violence. I hope
that one day (in the not-so-distant future), we will become an advanced species that cares for
our pale blue dot, practices love and compassion instead of hatred, and realizes that all we
have is each other. To create a better future and world, we must learn to cherish and appreciate
the lives of others as much as our own.

10
 Introduction

Let's begin by explaining what Nuxt.js is. To do that, we first need to talk about Vue.js.

Vue.js is a progressive (meaning incrementally adoptable) front-end JavaScript framework that

you can use to build highly engaging user interfaces and single-page applications.

Nuxt.js is an open-source JavaScript library based on Vue.js that uses Node.js, Webpack, and
Babel.js under the hood. Nuxt.js takes inspiration from Next.js, a framework of similar purpose
that’s based on React.js.

Nuxt.js takes Vue.js development to the next level and builds upon Vue.js. Think of it as a
framework for a framework—adding two significant features to Vue.js: server-side rendering;
and easy Vue.js application configuration and routing through folders and files.

To make it simple to understand, the goal of Nuxt.js is to make it easier for developers to create
and optimize Vue.js applications.

One of the main features of Nuxt.js is its ability to add server-side rendering to a Vue.js
application. Server-side rendering essentially means that we can build a Vue.js application to
prerender pages on the server before serving them to the user.

Server-side rendering has excellent advantages for search engine optimization (SEO) and can
significantly speed up your web app.

Traditional Vue.js applications require that developers create routes; however, with Nuxt.js,
explicitly creating routes is no longer necessary, as routes are inferred by the folder and file
structure of your Nuxt.js project.
In a nutshell, Nuxt.js simplifies the development of Vue.js applications and makes the
experience of writing Vue.js apps even more exciting and fun without adding any overhead to
the shipped bundle, and instead, optimizing the app for production.
If you are starting your journey with Vue.js, it's probably better that you get up to speed with
Vue.js first, rather than jumping straight into Nuxt.js. For that, the Succinctly series has you
covered with Vue.js Succinctly.
If you are not new to Vue.js, it will be okay to start your journey with Nuxt.js directly, and you'll
feel at home right off the bat.

Nuxt.js adds a nice layer of sugar coating around Vue.js, and if you are a Vue.js developer, it is
a tool that will boost your productivity.

So, without further ado, let's explore what this technology has to offer.

11
 Chapter 1 Getting Started

Client-side vs. server-side rendering

Before we begin, there's one crucial concept that I would like you to have crystal clear in your
mind, and that's server-side rendering.

Nuxt.js should not be confused with a templating engine running on the server—it's not a
replacement for templating engines such as EJS or Handlebars.

To understand server-side rendering, we need to take a step back and look at how traditional
Vue.js applications (which are single-page applications) work—which is another reason you
should first get up-to-speed with Vue.js before reading this book.

If you place UI components into your application pages rendered by some other server-side
service or technology, such as PHP or ASP.NET, you don't need Nuxt.js.

On the other hand, Vue.js is a client-side framework for traditional single-page applications. The
single-page application mechanism works for a Vue.js app because the user sends a request by
entering a URL, and the server sends back an HTML file.

In that case, the HTML file sent by the server contains barely any HTML code, but it does
include your single-page application logic—essentially, all the scripts that need to be loaded to
start the Vue.js app, which runs entirely in the browser.

The loaded Vue.js app is responsible for rendering the UI. Therefore, the view adds all the
HTML elements to the page, and it is also responsible for routing and catching any URLs that
you might visit within the app.

With a traditional Vue.js application, you never receive a second HTML page from the server as
a response when you visit a new URL route within that application (as long as you stay within
the application's routes).

However, the HTML file could be served from the server and rendered there. In the traditional
Vue.js application approach, the HTML file received doesn't contain the HTML that the user
sees on the screen, as this content is all created on the client side through JavaScript.

The traditional Vue.js approach is not great for search engine optimization, especially if you
need to load data asynchronously before rendering something onto the screen. The following
figure illustrates this process.

12
 Figure 1-a: Traditional Client-Side Rendering (Single-Page Application)

In Figure 1-a, the index.html file is rendered on the client after the server returns it following a
user request.

So, imagine for a second that the Google web crawler is indexing your site or application
created with Vue.js. The crawler will not wait for your page content to load; instead, it will see an
empty page. On the other hand, this traditional single-page approach is not well suited for sites
that require fast loading times, such as e-commerce applications.

What Nuxt.js gives us is the ability to solve this problem by rendering that first page on the
server. Therefore, that first page the user visits for any given URL within the application scope
(independent of the root URL or another app URL) can be prerendered on the server, on the fly,
when the user requests it.

With Nuxt.js, you get a regular Vue.js application, but that app gets prerendered dynamically or
even statically on the server. In other words, with Nuxt.js, when a user accesses your page, the
page is sent from the server prerendered and loaded. The following figure illustrates this
process.

13
 Figure 1-b: Server-side rendering

The difference, in this case, is that although the Vue.js application still manages the index.html
file, the server can send back a non-empty index.html file on the first request that has been
prerendered.

From there onward, we are back in single-page application mode, and no secondary HTML file
gets rendered—as Vue.js handles all navigation actions from that point.

Nuxt.js helps in that initial load, pre-rendered on the server, which results in a non-empty HTML
response, thus improving page load performance and SEO. This is what server-side rendering
is all about.

Nuxt.js server-side rendering

Now that I’ve covered the difference between client-side and server-side rendering, I'd like to
bring another essential item to your attention.

If you’ve worked extensively with Vue.js, you might already know that it’s possible to implement
server-side rendering without using a framework like Nuxt.js. This topic is officially covered in
the Vue.js documentation. It’s well covered there, and there's a complete guide that goes
through all the steps required to implement it. However, it's not an easy thing to do.

Even though that guide exists, Nuxt.js abstracts most of that complexity away. The advantage of
using Nuxt.js instead of implementing server-side rendering using Vue.js is that you get it ready
to go, out of the box, and highly optimized.

With Nuxt.js, to get server-side rendering working, we need to create a new project—that's it (as
we'll see shortly). There's no need to fiddle with Vue.js configuration.

14
 So, to put things into perspective, Nuxt.js didn't invent server-side rendering and is not
reinventing the wheel. All Nuxt.js does is make it super easy for any Vue.js application to have
highly optimized server-side rendering out of the box—making development with Vue.js a
cleaner and better experience.

Installing Node.js
To install Nuxt.js, you first need to have Node.js installed. If you don't have Node.js installed,
you can download it from the official site.

Figure 1-c: Node.js Official Website

You can choose to download either the long-term support (LTS) or the current version—either is
fine. I will install the LTS version. Once you have downloaded Node.js, execute the installer file.

Figure 1-d: Node.js Installer

Once you have executed the installer, you'll see the following screen. Click Next to continue the
installation process.

15
 Figure 1-e: Initial Node.js Installation Screen

Then, you'll be asked to accept the license terms. Click Next to carry on with the installation. At
this stage, you'll be presented with a screen where you can select the Node.js installation folder.

Figure 1-f: Node.js Installation (Destination Folder Screen)

I usually leave the default installation folder and click Next; however, you can choose a different
folder if you prefer. With that done, click Next to continue the installation.

At this point, you'll see the Custom Setup screen. In my case, I always use the default options,
as you can see in the following figure.

16
 Figure 1-g: Node.js Installation (Custom Setup Screen)
To continue the installation, click Next. You should see the following screen.

Figure 1-h: Node.js Installation (Tools for Native Modules Screen)

You may choose to select the option Automatically install the necessary tools at this stage.
When this option is selected, it allows the Node.js installer to install any other dependency
needed using Chocolatey. To continue the installation, click Next.

17
 Figure 1-i: Node.js Installation (Ready to install Node.js Screen)
We need to click Install at this stage. Doing that will deploy the Node.js runtime and files on the
installation folder previously selected. The process is usually quick.
If a previous version of Node.js exists on the machine, that version gets removed before the
newer version is deployed. Once the new files have been installed, you'll see the following
screen.

Figure 1-j: Node.js Installation (Node.js Setup Wizard Screen—Finish)

To finalize the installation, all we need to do is click Finish. Now Node.js is installed, and we
can install Nuxt.js.

18
 Getting started with Nuxt.js
At the time of writing this book, the latest version of Nuxt.js is version 3 (in beta)—which is the
version that we'll be working with throughout this book, as it includes support for the latest
Vue.js features released with version 3.

Installing Nuxt.js is straightforward. From the terminal, command line, or from the built-in
terminal within Visual Studio Code (VS Code)—which is my editor of choice—type in the
following command. Feel free to use another editor; however, I recommend VS Code so you
can follow along easily.
Code Listing 1-a: Command to Create a New Nuxt.js Project

npx nuxi init nuxt-app

Note: The name of the Nuxt.js application being created is nuxt-app; however, you
may choose a different name. I suggest using the same name to follow along easily.

Tip: For more information on how the npx command works, please check out the
official NPM documentation.

Once you have executed this command, you'll be asked if you want to install the Nuxi NPM
package, which is the new Nuxt.js CLI experience.

Note: NPM stands for node package manager.

Figure 1-k: VS Code Integrated Terminal (Installing Nuxt.js)

To continue, type in y and press enter—this will install the CLI and scaffold a new Nuxt.js
project, as you can see in the following figure.

19
 Figure 1-l: VS Code Integrated Terminal (Nuxt.js Installed)

With Nuxt.js installed and the project scaffolded, we can go into the newly created Nuxt.js
application folder, called nuxt-app, with the following command.

Code Listing 1-b: Command to Change to the Project Folder

cd nuxt-app

Once we are inside the nuxt-app folder, we can enter the npm install command at the prompt
to install all the required packages and dependencies that our project will need.
Code Listing 1-c: Command to Install Project Dependencies

npm install

20
 Figure 1-m: Installing Project Dependencies (VS Code)

Note: Although it is possible to use yarn instead of npm, throughout this book, I'll
be using npm. You may well choose to use yarn, though.

With that done, let's run the scaffolded application in development mode and have a look. You
can do this by executing the following command.
Code Listing 1-d: Command to Execute the Project in Dev Mode

npm run dev -- -o

After executing this command, you should see the following within the built-in terminal in VS
Code. The -- as an argument on its own means further arguments should be treated as
positional arguments, not options.

Figure 1-n: Execution of the Project

To visualize the Nuxt.js project running, you'll need to open it in a modern browser, which you
can do by typing the local URL, or clicking directly on the URL link, as seen in the preceding
figure.

21
 Figure 1-o: Nuxt.js Starter Project Running
To stop the execution of the application, you can press Ctrl+C within the integrated VS Code
terminal.

Summary
At this stage, we have successfully installed Nuxt.js and scaffolded a basic application, which,
as you have seen, was straightforward.

The next chapter will explore the project structure and explain how pages, views, and routing
work together.

22
 Chapter 2 Project Structure

Initial project structure

An essential part of understanding Nuxt.js is knowing a project's folder structure. That’s what
this chapter is all about.
Let's begin by looking at the scaffolded project's folder structure. If you have VS Code open,
ensure that the EXPLORER panel is visible. It displays the list of folders and files that are part of
the project.

Figure 2-a: VS Code (EXPLORER—Project Folders and Files)

Notice that the project doesn't (yet) include any project-specific folders. It consists only of the
.nuxt folder, which contains all the core Nuxt.js engine and configuration, and the node_modules
folder, which includes the dependencies required by Nuxt.js.

So, there aren't any project-related folders specific to the Nuxt.js app itself. This means that this
project we created is a barebones Nuxt.js app, which is nothing more than an empty shell, and
we would need to create project-specific folders manually.

This is the path we will take—to create the folder and file structure ourselves as we go.
However, there's an alternative way that I'd like to show you.

23
Create Nuxt app
There's a tool that works with Nuxt.js version 2 called create-nuxt-app, which can scaffold a
Nuxt.js (version 2) application with a complete folder structure in no time.
At the time of writing this book, create-nuxt-app does not yet support Nuxt.js version 3;
nevertheless, I'd like to cover it briefly.

Creating a Nuxt.js (version 2) application with create-nuxt-app is straightforward. You need to

execute the following command and replace <project-name> with the name of your app,
where npx stands for “node package execute.”

Code Listing 2-a: Command to Install create-nuxt-app and Scaffold a Nuxt.js (v2) App

npx create-nuxt-app <project-name>

Let's go through these steps using VS Code. I will type the following command using the built-in
VS Code terminal, within my root directory.

Code Listing 2-b Create the test Nuxt.js (v2) App

npx create-nuxt-app test

After I press Enter, create-nuxt-app asks to confirm the name of the application.

Figure 2-b: Project Name— create-nuxt-app (Built-in Terminal—VS Code)

At this stage, if I press Enter, the project name will be set as test. However, I could also choose
to type in a different name for the project. I'll stick with test and press Enter.

Then, create-nuxt-app requests the programming language we want to use for our Nuxt.js
(version 2) application. We can change the programming language by using the arrow keys. In
my case, I'll choose JavaScript. To select it, I press Enter.

Figure 2-c: Programming language— create-nuxt-app (Built-in Terminal—VS Code)

24
 The next step is to choose the package manager our application will use. Although Yarn is also
valid, I will select the Npm option using the down arrow key, and then press Enter.

Figure 2-d: Package Manager— create-nuxt-app (Built-in Terminal—VS Code)

Next, there's the option to select one of several UI frameworks. I won't be choosing any UI
framework, as the goal is to walk you through these steps. However, if you were using create-
nuxt-app to scaffold an app you’re creating, you could choose a UI framework that would best
fit your project.

Figure 2-e: UI Framework—create-nuxt-app (Built-in Terminal—VS Code)

Next, there's the option to add additional modules, such as the Axios HTTP client library, or add
progressive web app (PWA) capabilities to the Nuxt.js application.

25
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
the further recommendation of assisting more than any other
treatment to enlarge our appreciation of the author and of his
achievements. The second part will use the materials collected in the
first part to present, in the form of a brief survey, Dramatic Criticism
as an inductive science: enumerating, so far as its materials admit,
the leading topics which such a science would treat, and arranging
these topics in the logical connection which scientific method requires.
 PART FIRST.

SHAKESPEARE
CONSIDERED AS A

DRAMATIC ARTIST
IN TEN STUDIES.
 I.
The Two Stories Shakespeare borrows for his Merchant of Venice.
A Study in the Raw Material of the Romantic Drama.

Story as the
Raw Materials of T HE starting-point in the treatment of any work of
literature is its position in literary history: the
the Romantic recognition of this gives the attitude of mind which is
Drama. most favourable for extracting from the work its full
effect. The division of the universal Drama to which
Shakespeare belongs is known as the 'Romantic Drama,' one of its
chief distinctions being that it uses the stories of Romance, together
with histories treated as story-books, as the sources from which the
matter of the plays is taken; Romances are the raw material out of
which the Shakespearean Drama is manufactured. This very fact
serves to illustrate the elevation of the Elizabethan Drama in the scale
of literary development: just as the weaver uses as his raw material
that which is the finished product of the spinner, so Shakespeare and
his contemporaries start in their art of dramatising from Story which is
already a form of art. In the exhibition, then, of Shakespeare as an
Artist, it is natural to begin with the raw material which he worked up
into finished masterpieces. For illustration of this no play could be
more suitable than The Merchant of Venice, in which two tales,
already familiar in the story form, have been woven together into a
single plot: the Story of the Cruel Jew, who entered into a bond with
his enemy of which the forfeit was to be a pound of this enemy's own
flesh, and the Story of the Heiress and the Caskets. The present study
will deal with the stories themselves, considering them as if with the
eye of a dramatic artist to catch the points in which they lend
themselves to dramatic effect; the next will show how Shakespeare
improves the stories in the telling, increasing their dramatic force by
the very process of working them up; a third study will point out how,
not content with two stories, he has added others in the development
of his plot, making it more complex only in reality to make it more
simple.

Story of The In the Story of the Jew the main point is its special
Jew. capability for bringing out the idea of Nemesis, one
of the simplest and most universal of dramatic
motives. Described broadly, Nemesis is retribution as it appears in the
Nemesis as a
world of art. In reality the term covers two distinct
dramatic idea. conceptions: in ancient thought Nemesis was an
artistic bond between excess and reaction, in modern
thought it is an artistic bond between sin and retribution. The
distinction is part of the general difference between Greek and
Ancient
modern views of life. The Greeks may be said to be
conception: the most artistic nation of mankind, in the sense that
artistic art covered so large a proportion of their whole
connection personality: it is not surprising to find that they
between excess projected their sense of art into morals. Aristotle was
and reaction.
a moral philosopher, but his system of ethics reads
as an artistically devised pattern, in which every virtue is removed at
equal distances from vices of excess and defect balancing it on
opposite sides. The Greek word for law signifies proportion and
distribution, nomos; and it is only another form of it that expresses
Nemesis as the power punishing violations of proportion in things
human. Distinct from Justice, which was occupied with crime,
Nemesis was a companion deity to Fortune; and as Fortune went
through the world distributing the good things of life heedlessly
without regard to merit, so Nemesis followed in her steps, and,
equally without regard to merit, delighted in cutting down the
prosperity that was high enough to attract her attention. Polycrates is
the typical victim of such Nemesis: cast off by his firmest ally for no
offence but an unbroken career of good luck, in the reaction from
which his ally feared to be involved; essaying as a forlorn hope to
propitiate by voluntarily throwing in the sea his richest crown-jewel;
recognising when this was restored by fishermen that heaven had
refused his sacrifice, and abandoning himself to his fate in despair.
But Nemesis, to the moral sense of antiquity, could go even beyond
visitation on innocent prosperity, and goodness itself could be carried
to a degree that invited divine reaction. Heroes like Lycurgus and
Pentheus perished for excess of temperance; and the ancient Drama
startles the modern reader with an Hippolytus, whose passionate
purity brought down on him a destruction prophesied beforehand by
those to whom religious duty suggested moderate indulgence in lust.

Modern Such malignant correction of human inequalities is

conception: not a function to harmonise with modern conceptions
artistic of Deity. Yet the Greek notion of Nemesis has an
connection element of permanency in it, for it represents a
between sin and principle underlying human life. It suggests a sort of
retribution.
elasticity in human experience, a tendency to
rebound from a strain; this is the equilibrium of the moral world, the
force which resists departure from the normal, becoming greater in
proportion as departure from the normal is wider. Thus in commercial
speculation there is a safe medium certain to bring profit in the long
run; in social ambition there is a certain rise though slow: if a man
hurries to be rich, or seeks to rise in public life by leaps and bounds,
the spectator becomes aware of a secret force that has been set in
motion, as when the equilibrium of physical bodies has been
disturbed, which force threatens to drag the aspirant down to the
point from which he started, or to debase him lower in proportion to
the height at which he rashly aimed. Such a force is 'risk,' and it may
remain risk, but if it be crowned with the expected fall the whole is
recognised as 'Nemesis.' This Nemesis is deeply embedded in the
popular mind and repeatedly crops up in its proverbial wisdom.
Proverbs like 'Grasp all, lose all,' 'When things come to the worst they
are sure to mend,' exactly express moral equilibrium, and the 'golden
mean' is its proverbial formula. The saying 'too much of a good thing'
suggests that the Nemesis on departures from the golden mean
applies to good things as well as bad; while the principle is made to
apply even to the observation of the golden mean itself in the proverb
'Nothing venture, nothing have.' Nevertheless, this side of the whole
notion has in modern usage fallen into the background in comparison
with another aspect of Nemesis. The grand distinction of modern
thought is the predominance in it of moral ideas: they colour even its
imagination; and if the Greeks carried their art-sense into morals,
modern instincts have carried morals into art. In particular the
speculations raised by Christianity have cast the shadow of Sin over
the whole universe. It has been said that the conception of Sin is
unknown to the ancients, and that the word has no real equivalent in
Latin or Classical Greek. The modern mind is haunted by it. Notions of
Sin have invaded art, and Nemesis shows their influence: vague
conceptions of some supernatural vindication of artistic proportion in
life have now crystallised into the interest of watching morals and art
united in their treatment of Sin. The link between Sin and its
retribution becomes a form of art-pleasure; and no dramatic effect is
more potent in modern Drama than that which emphasises the
principle that whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.

Dramatic Now for this dramatic effect of Nemesis it would be

Nemesis latent difficult to find a story promising more scope than
in the Story of the Story of the Cruel Jew. It will be seen at once to
the Jew. contain a double nemesis, attaching to the Jew
himself and to his victim. The two moreover
represent the different conceptions of Nemesis in the ancient and
modern world; Antonio's excess of moral confidence suffers a nemesis
of reaction in his humiliation, and Shylock's sin of judicial murder finds
a nemesis of retribution in his ruin by process of law. The nemesis, it
will be observed, is not merely two-fold, but double in the way that a
double flower is distinct from two flowers: it is a nemesis on a
nemesis; the nemesis which visits Antonio's fault is the crime for
which Shylock suffers his nemesis. Again, in that which gives artistic
character to the reaction and the retribution the two nemeses differ.
Let St. Paul put the difference for us: 'Some men's sins are evident,
going before unto judgment; and some they follow after.' So in cases
like that of Shylock the nemesis is interesting from its very
obviousness and the impatience with which we look for it; in the case
of Antonio the nemesis is striking for the very opposite reason, that
he of all men seemed most secure against it.

Antonio:
Antonio must be understood as a perfect character:
perfection and for we must read the play in the light of its age, and
self-sufficiency, intolerance was a mediæval virtue. But there is no
the Nemesis of single good quality that does not carry with it its
Surprise. special temptation, and the sum of them all, or
perfection, has its shadow in self-sufficiency. It is so
with Antonio. Of all national types of character the Roman is the most
self-sufficient, alike incorruptible by temptation and independent of
iii. ii. 297.
the softer influences of life: we find that 'Roman
honour' is the idea which Antonio's friends are
accustomed to associate with him. Further the dramatist contrives to
exhibit Antonio to us in circumstances calculated to bring out this
drawback to his perfection. In the opening scene we see the dignified
merchant-prince suffering under the infliction of frivolous visitors, to
which his friendship with the young nobleman exposes him: his tone
throughout the interview is that of the barest toleration, and suggests
that his courtesies are felt rather as what is due to himself than what
i. i. 60-64.
is due to those on whom they are bestowed. When
Salarino makes flattering excuses for taking his
leave, Antonio replies, first with conventional compliment,

Your worth is very dear in my regard,

and then with blunt plainness, as if Salarino were not worth the
trouble of keeping up polite fiction:

I take it, your own business calls on you

And you embrace the occasion to depart.

i. i. 8. The visitors, trying to find explanation for Antonio's

seriousness, suggest that he is thinking of his vast
commercial speculations; Antonio draws himself up:

i. i. 41.
 Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for it,
My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,
Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate
Upon the fortune of this present year:
Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad.

Antonio is saying in his prosperity that he shall never be moved. But

the great temptation to self-sufficiency lies in his contact, not with
social inferiors, but with a moral outcast such as Shylock: confident
that the moral gulf between the two can never be bridged over,
Antonio has violated dignity as well as mercy in the gross insults he
i. iii. 99 &c.
has heaped upon the Jew whenever they have met.
In the Bond Scene we see him unable to restrain his
insults at the very moment in which he is soliciting a favour from his
i. iii. 107-130.
enemy; the effect reaches a climax as Shylock
gathers up the situation in a single speech, reviewing
the insults and taunting his oppressor with the solicited obligation:

Well then, it now appears you need my help:

Go to, then; you come to me, and you say,
'Shylock, we would have moneys': you say so;
You, that did void your rheum upon my beard
And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur
Over your threshold: moneys is your suit.

There is such a foundation of justice for these taunts that for a

moment our sympathies are transferred to Shylock's side. But
Antonio, so far from taking warning, is betrayed beyond all bounds in
his defiance; and in the challenge to fate with which he replies we
catch the tone of infatuated confidence, the hybris in which Greek
superstition saw the signal for the descent of Nemesis.

i. iii. 131.
 I am as like to call thee so again,
To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too.
If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not
As to thy friends ...
But lend it rather to thine enemy,
Who, if he break, thou may'st with better face
Exact the penalty.

To this challenge of self-sufficiency the sequel of the story is the

answering Nemesis: the merchant becomes a bankrupt, the first
citizen of Venice a prisoner at the bar, the morally perfect man holds
his life and his all at the mercy of the reprobate he thought he might
safely insult.

Shylock:
So Nemesis has surprised Antonio in spite of his
malignant perfectness: but the malice of Shylock is such as is
justice, the perpetually crying for retribution, and the retribution
Nemesis of is delayed only that it may descend with
Measure for accumulated force. In the case of this second
Measure.
nemesis the Story of the Jew exhibits dramatic
capability in the opportunity it affords for the sin and the retribution
iv. i.
to be included within the same scene. Portia's happy
thought is a turning-point in the Trial Scene on the
two sides of which we have the Jew's triumph and the Jew's
retribution; the two sides are bound together by the principle of
measure for measure, and for each detail of vindictiveness that is
developed in the first half of the scene there is a corresponding item
Charter v.
of nemesis in the sequel. To begin with, Shylock
statute. iv. i. appeals to the charter of the city. It is one of the
38; compare distinctions between written and unwritten law that
102, 219. no flagrant injustice can arise out of the latter. If the
analogy of former precedents would seem to
threaten such an injustice, it is easy in a new case to meet the special
emergency by establishing a new precedent; where, however, the
letter of the written law involves a wrong, however great, it must,
nevertheless, be exactly enforced. Shylock takes his stand upon
compare iii. iii.
written law; indeed upon the strictest of all kinds of
26-31. written law, for the charter of the city would seem to
be the instrument regulating the relations between
citizens and aliens—an absolute necessity for a free port—which could
not be superseded without international negotiations. But what is the
result? As plaintiff in the cause Shylock would, in the natural course of
justice, leave the court, when judgment had been given against him,
with no further mortification than the loss of his suit. He is about to
do so when he is recalled:

It is enacted in the laws of Venice, &c.

iv. i. 314. Unwittingly, he has, by the action he has taken,

entangled himself with an old statute law, forgotten
by all except the learned Bellario, which, going far beyond natural
law, made the mere attempt upon a citizen's life by an alien
punishable to the same extent as murder. Shylock had chosen the
letter of the law, and by the letter of the law he is to suffer. Again,
Humour v.
every one must feel that the plea on which Portia
quibble. upsets the bond is in reality the merest quibble. It is
appropriate enough in the mouth of a bright girl
playing the lawyer, but no court of justice could seriously entertain it
for a moment: by every principle of interpretation a bond that could
justify the cutting of human flesh must also justify the shedding of
blood, which is necessarily implied in such cutting. But, to balance
this, we have Shylock in the earlier part of the scene refusing to listen
to arguments of justice, and taking his stand upon his 'humour': if he
iv. i. 40-62.
has a whim, he pleads, for giving ten thousand
ducats to have a rat poisoned, who shall prevent
him? The suitor who rests his cause on a whim cannot complain if it is
upset by a quibble. Similarly, throughout the scene, every point in
Shylock's justice of malice meets its answer in the justice of nemesis.
He is offered double the amount of his loan:

Offer of double
v. refusal of
principal.
If every ducat in six thousand ducats
Were in six parts, and every part a ducat,

he answers, he would not accept them in lieu of his bond. The wheel
iv. i. 318, 336.
of Nemesis goes round, and Shylock would gladly
accept not only this offer but even the bare principal;
but he is denied, on the ground that he has refused it in open court.
They try to bend him to thoughts of mercy:

Complete
security v. total
How shalt thou hope for mercy, rendering none?
loss.
He dares to reply:

What judgement shall I dread, doing no wrong?

The wheel of Nemesis goes round, and Shylock's life and all lie at the
mercy of the victim to whom he had refused mercy and the judge to
Exultation v.
whose appeal for mercy he would not listen. In the
irony. flow of his success, when every point is being given
in his favour, he breaks out into unseemly exultation:

iv. i. 223, 246,

250, 301, 304.
A Daniel come to judgement! yea, a Daniel!

The ebb comes, and his enemies catch up the cry and turn it against
him:

iv. i. 313, 317,

323, 333, 340.
A Daniel, still say I, a second Daniel!
I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word.

Such then is the Story of the Jew, and so it exhibits nemesis clashing
with nemesis, the nemesis of surprise with the nemesis of equality
and intense satisfaction.
The Caskets
In the Caskets Story, which Shakespeare has
Story. associated with the Story of the Jew, the dramatic
capabilities are of a totally different kind. In the
artist's armoury one of the most effective weapons is Idealisation:
Idealisation:
inexplicable touches throwing an attractiveness over
the repulsive, uncovering the truth and beauty which
lie hidden in the commonplace, and showing how much can be
the exhibition of
brought out of how little with how little change. A
a commonplace story will be excellent material, then, for dramatic
experience in a handling which contains at once some experience of
glorified form. ordinary life, and also the surroundings which can be
made to exhibit this experience in a glorified form:
the more commonplace the experience, the greater the triumph of art
if it can be idealised. The point of the Caskets Story to the eye of an
artist in Drama is the opportunity it affords for such an idealisation of
the commonest problem in everyday experience—what may be called
the Problem of Judgment by Appearances.

Problem of In the choice between alternatives there are three

Judgment by ways in which judgment may be exercised. The first
Appearances. mode, if it can be called judgment at all, is to accept
the decision of chance—to cast lots, or merely to
drift into a decision. An opposite to this is purely rational choice. But
rational choice, if strictly interpreted as a logical process, involves
great complications. If a man would choose according to the methods
of strict reason, he must, first of all, purge himself of all passion, for
passion and reason are antagonistic. Next, he must examine himself
as to the possibility of latent prejudice; and as prejudice may be
unconsciously inherited, he must include in the sphere of his
examination ancestral and national bias. Then, he must accumulate
all the evidence that can possibly bear upon the question in hand, and
foresee every eventuality that can result from either alternative. When
he has all the materials of choice before him, he must proceed to
balance them against one another, seeing first that the mental
faculties employed in the process have been equally developed by
training. All such preliminary conditions having been satisfied, he may
venture to enquire on which side the balance dips, maintaining his
suspense so long as the dip is undecided. And when a man has done
all this he has attained only that degree of approach to strictly
rational choice which his imperfect nature admits. Such pure reason
has no place in real life: judgment in practical affairs is something
between chance and this strict reason; it attempts to use the
machinery of rational choice, but only so far as practical
considerations proper to the matter in hand allow. This medium
choice is what I am here calling Judgment by Appearances, for it is
clear that the antithesis between appearance and reality will obtain so
long as the materials of choice are scientifically incomplete; the term
will apply with more and more appropriateness as the divergence
from perfect conditions of choice is greater.

This idealised: a Judgment by Appearances so defined is the only

maximum in the method of judgment proper to practical life, and
issue. accordingly an exalted exhibition of it must furnish a
keen dramatic interest. How is such a process to be
glorified? Clearly Judgment by Appearances will reach the ideal stage
when there is the maximum of importance in the issue to be decided
and the minimum of evidence by which to decide it. These two
conditions are satisfied in the Caskets Story. In questions touching the
individual life, that of marriage has this unique importance, that it is
bound up with wide consequences which extend beyond the
individual himself to his posterity. With the suitors of Portia the
question is of marriage with the woman who is presented as supreme
ii. i. 40, &c.
of her age in beauty, in wealth and in character;
moreover, the other alternative is a vow of perpetual
celibacy. So the question at issue in the Caskets Story concerns the
most important act of life in the most important form in which it can
and a minimum
be imagined to present itself. When we turn to the
in the evidence. evidence on which this question is to be decided we
find that of rational evidence there is absolutely
none. The choice is to be made between three caskets distinguished
by their metals and by the accompanying inscriptions:

ii. vii. 5-9.

 Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.
Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.
Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.

However individual fancies may incline, it is manifestly impossible to

set up any train of reasoning which should discover a ground of
preference amongst the three. And it is worth noting, as an example
of Shakespeare's nicety in detail, that the successful chooser reads in
the scroll which announces his victory,

iii. ii. 132.

You that choose not by the view,
Chance as fair, and choose as true:

i. ii. 30-36.
Shakespeare does not say 'more fair,' 'more true.'
This equal balancing of the alternatives will appear
still clearer when we recollect that it is an intentional puzzle with
which we are dealing, and accordingly that even if ingenuity could
discover a preponderance of reason in favour of any one of the three,
there would be the chance that this preponderance had been
anticipated by the father who set the puzzle. The case becomes like
that of children bidden to guess in which hand a sweetmeat is
concealed. They are inclined to say the right hand, but hesitate
whether that answer may not have been foreseen and the sweetmeat
put in the left hand; and if on this ground they are tempted to be
sharp and guess the left hand, there is the possibility that this
sharpness may have been anticipated, and the sweetmeat kept after
all in the right hand. If then the Caskets Story places before us three
suitors, going through three trains of intricate reasoning for guidance
in a matter on which their whole future depends, whereas we, the
spectators, can see that from the nature of the case no reasoning can
possibly avail them, we have clearly the Problem of Judgment by
Appearances drawn out in its ideal form; and our sympathies are
attracted by the sight of a process, belonging to our everyday
experience, yet developed before us in all the force artistic setting can
bestow.
Solution of the
But is this all? Does Shakespeare display before us
problem: the the problem, yet give no help towards its solution?
characters of the The key to the suitors' fates is not to be found in the
choosers trains of reasoning they go through. As if to warn us
determine their against looking for it in this direction. Shakespeare
fates.
contrives that we never hear the reasonings of the
successful suitor. By a natural touch Portia, who has chosen Bassanio
in her heart, is represented as unable to bear the suspense of hearing
him deliberate, and calls for music to drown his meditations; it is only
iii. ii, from 43;
the conclusion to which he has come that we catch
esp. 61. as the music closes. The particular song selected on
this occasion points dimly in the direction in which
we are to look for the true solution of the problem:

iii. ii. 63.

Tell me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart or in the head?

'Fancy' in Shakespearean English means 'love'; and the discussion,

whether love belongs to the head or the heart, is no inappropriate
accompaniment to a reality which consists in this—that the success in
love of the suitors, which they are seeking to compass by their
reasonings, is in fact being decided by their characters.
To compare the characters of the three suitors, it will be enough to
ii. i, vii.
note the different form that pride takes in each. The
first suitor is a prince of a barbarian race, who has
thus never known equals, but has been taught to consider himself
half divine; as if made of different clay from the rest of mankind he
ii. vii. 20.
instinctively shrinks from 'lead.' Yet modesty mingles
with his pride, and though he feels truly that, so far
ii. vii. 24-30.
as the estimation of him by others is concerned, he
might rely upon 'desert,' yet he doubts if desert
ii. vii, from 36.
extends as far as Portia. What seizes his attention is
the words, 'what many men desire'; and he rises to a
flight of eloquence in picturing wildernesses and deserts become
thoroughfares by the multitude of suitors flocking to Belmont. But he
is all the while betraying a secret of which he was himself
unconscious: he has been led to seek the hand of Portia, not by true
love, but by the feeling that what all the world is seeking the Prince of
Morocco must not be slow to claim. Very different is the pride of
ii. ix.
Arragon. He has no regal position, but rather
appears to be one who has fallen in social rank: he
compare ii. ix.
makes up for such a fall by intense pride of family,
47-9. and is one of those who complacently thank heaven
that they are not as other men. The 'many men'
which had attracted Morocco repels Arragon:

ii. ix. 31.

I will not choose what many men desire,
Because I will not jump with common spirits,
And rank me with the barbarous multitudes.

ii. ix, from 36. He is caught by the bait of 'desert.' It is true he

almost deceives us with the lofty tone in which he
reflects how the world would benefit if dignities and offices were in all
cases purchased by the merit of the wearer; yet there peeps through
his sententiousness his real conception of merit—the sole merit of
family descent. His ideal is that the 'true seed of honour' should be
'picked from the chaff and ruin of the times,' and wrest greatness
from the 'low peasantry' who had risen to it. He accordingly rests his
fate upon desert: and he finds in the casket of his choice a fool's
iii. ii, from 73.
head. Of Bassanio's soliloquy we hear enough to
catch that his pride is the pride of the soldier, who
compare i. ii.
will yield to none the post of danger, and how he is
124. thus attracted by the 'threatening' of the leaden
casket:

thou meagre lead,

Which rather threatenest than dost promise aught,
Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence.
Moreover, he is a lover, and the threatening is a challenge to show
what he will risk for love: his true heart finds its natural satisfaction in
'giving and hazarding' his all. This is the pride that is worthy of Portia;
and thus the ingenious puzzle of the 'inspired' father has succeeded in
piercing through the outer defence of specious reasoning, and
carrying its repulsion and attraction to the inmost characters of the
suitors.

General Such, then, is Shakespeare's treatment of the

principle: Problem of Judgment by Appearances: while he
character as an draws out the problem itself to its fullest extent in
element in displaying the suitors elaborating trains of argument
judgment. for a momentous decision in which we see that
reason can be of no avail, he suggests for the
solution that, besides reason, there is in such judgments another
element, character, and that in those crises in which reason is most
fettered, character is most potent. An important solution this is; for
what is character? A man's character is the shadow of his past life; it
is the grand resultant of all the forces from within and from without
that have been operating upon him since he became a conscious
agent. Character is the sandy footprint of the commonplace hardened
into the stone of habit; it is the complexity of daily tempers,
judgments, restraints, impulses, all focussed into one master-passion
acting with the rapidity of an instinct. To lay down then, that where
reason fails as an element in judgment, character comes to its aid, is
to bind together the exceptional and the ordinary in life. In most of
the affairs of life men have scope for the exercise of commonplace
qualities, but emergencies do come where this is denied them; in
these cases, while they think, like the three suitors, that they are
moving voluntarily in the direction in which they are judging fit at the
moment, in reality the weight of their past lives is forcing them in the
direction in which their judgment has been accustomed to take them.
Thus in the moral, as in the physical world, nothing is ever lost: not a
ripple on the surface of conduct but goes on widening to the
outermost limit of experience. Shakespeare's contribution to the
question of practical judgment is that by the long exercise of
commonplace qualities we are building up a character which, though
unconsciously, is the determining force in the emergencies in which
commonplace qualities are impossible.
 II.
How Shakespeare Improves the stories in the Telling.
A Study in Dramatic Workmanship.

Two points of
Dramatic I N treating the Story as the raw material of the
Romantic Drama it has already been shown, in
Mechanism. the case of the stories utilised for The Merchant of
Venice, what natural capacities these exhibit for
dramatic effect. The next step is to show how the artist increases
their dramatic force in the process of working them up. Two points
will be illustrated in the present study: first, how Shakespeare meets
the difficulties of a story and reduces them to a minimum; secondly,
how he improves the two tales by weaving them together so that they
assist one another's effect.

Reduction of The avoidance or reduction of difficulties in a story is

difficulties an obvious element in any kind of artistic handling; it
specially is of special importance in Drama in proportion as we
important in are more sensitive to improbabilities in what is
Drama. supposed to take place before our eyes than in what
we merely hear of by narrative. This branch of art
could not be better illustrated than in the Story of the Jew: never
perhaps has an artist had to deal with materials so bristling with
difficulties of the greatest magnitude, and never, it may be added,
have they been met with greater ingenuity. The host of improbabilities
gathering about such a detail as the pound of flesh must strike every
First difficulty:
mind. There is, however, preliminary to these,
monstrosity of another difficulty of more general application: the
the Jew's difficulty of painting a character bad enough to be
character. the hero of the story. It might be thought that to
paint excess of badness is comparatively easy, as
needing but a coarse brush. On the contrary, there are few severer
tests of creative power than the treatment of monstrosity. To be told
that there is villainy in the world and tacitly to accept the statement
may be easy; it is another thing to be brought into close contact with
the villains, to hear them converse, to watch their actions and
occasionally to be taken into their confidence. We realise in Drama
through our sympathy and our experience: in real life we have not
been accustomed to come across monsters and are unfamiliar with
their behaviour; in proportion then as the badness of a character is
exaggerated it is carried outside the sphere of our experience, the
naturalness of the scene is interrupted and its human interest tends
to decline. So, in the case of the story under consideration, the
dramatist is confronted with this dilemma: he must make the
character of Shylock absolutely bad, or the incident of the bond will
appear unreal; he must not make the character extraordinarily bad, or
there is danger of the whole scene appearing unreal.

Its repulsiveness Shakespeare meets a difficulty of this kind by a

counteracted by double treatment. On the one hand, he puts no limits
sympathy with to the blackness of the character itself; on the other
his wrongs. hand, he provides against repulsiveness by giving it a
special attraction of another kind. In the present
case, while painting Shylock as a monster, he secures for him a hold
upon our sympathy by representing him as a victim of intolerable ill-
treatment and injustice. The effect resembles the popular sympathy
with criminals. The men themselves and their crimes are highly
repulsive; but if some slight irregularity occurs in the process of
bringing them to justice—if a counsel shows himself unduly eager, or
a judge appears for a moment one-sided, a host of volunteer
advocates espouse their cause. These are actuated no doubt by
sensitiveness to purity of justice; but their protests have a ring that
closely resembles sympathy with the criminals themselves, whom
they not unfrequently end by believing to be innocent and injured. In
e.g. in iii. i, iii;
the same way Shakespeare shows no moderation in
iv. i; ii. 5. the touches of bloodthirstiness, of brutality, of sordid
meanness he heaps together in the character of
Shylock; but he takes equal pains to rouse our indignation at the
treatment he is made to suffer. Personages such as Gratiano, Salanio,
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