We don’t actually know what Shakespeare intended. He’s dead; we can’t ask him; and, if we look at all the books that have been written to explain his intentions to us, we will see that no one else knows or agrees either. Even if we did know, it might not help. It’s quite possible, for example, that The Merchant of Venice was written as an attack on Jew. If this were actually true, and of course we don’t know for sure, would it help us to appreciate it? Would it help our teaching? Would it explain why people still flock to Stratford to see it performed?