The Merchant of Venice

Sources

• Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, a novella in Il Pecorone

• WS. read it either in the original or in translation (unknown).

• Three caskets: traditional folktale motif.• Also from a 1595 translation of selected parts

of Gesta Romanorum

Venice a mirror for England 1

• Fascination with Venice as a setting. • Venice a theatre where the great conflicts of

England are played out.• A society in transition from a feudal system to

a modern capitalistic system.• A society moving away from the aristocratic-

patriarchal order.

Venice a mirror for England 2• Venice sea-oriented-- as England was

becoming under Queen Elizebeth• A city (nation) open to trade with the world.• Wealth deriving from commerce rather than

from landed property (cf. Belmont.)• A multi-ethnic, multi-racial city , strivng to be

tolerant of difference (at least legally).• Impartial law, but open to interpretation.– Benevolent Venetian law. Merciful monarch-like

Duke.

Two economic orders

• New capitalist order of money lenders, bankers, finance.

• In Venice, the Jews; in England the Puritans.– NewEngilsh finance discredited through association

with Jews to make it more hateful.– Anti-Semitism

• Old feudal, aristocratic order.– Portia’s father– Antonio. Does not lend money for profit. Circle of

friends. Male-bonding, patronage rather than economic reasoning.

A play about Otherness

• About Jews• About other minorities (Morocco and the other

suitors. Ethnically stereotyped.) All refused in favour of the only Venetian (non-Other)

• About marginalized groups (women, homosexuals)• Alan Sinfield: play demonstrates “the mechanism

of exclusion” and reinforces “the privilege of some groups and the subordination of Others” (Alternative Shakespeares.)

Antonio, the Italian gentleman

• Partly a modern merchant, partly modelled after Castiglione’s Cortegiano.

• Sprezzatura. He is above worldly preoccupations. Indifferent to money. Indifferent to sexual pleasure.

• Delegates Bassanio to love and Shylock to make profit.• Lends money out of friendship, not profit.• Idealised male friendhip. Humanistic, traditionalist all

male circles A favourite topic of the Italian Renaissance.– Plato’s Phaedrus. . Neo-Platonism in Florence.

Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano– Shakespeare’s sonnets

Shylock the villain

• He is revengeful. Animated by a passionate hatred.• Devises a cruel form of revenge. Considers Antonio

as an object, an animal• Economic rationalism: getting rid of his economic

rival.• He will not forgive.• He shows no compassion.• Seems to care more about his money than about

his daughter.

Shylock, the Italian Jew, an equivalent of the Italian villain

• Some of the characteristics of stereotyped Italians reflected in Shylock.

• Dangers of Italy were at times represented as deriving from Jews who were numerous and powerful in the country (although persecuted and segregated) :– Thomas Nashe’s Unfortunate traveller was taken

prisoner by a “foreskin clipper”– Coryat fears circumcision– Marlowe’s Barabas

Sympathetic representation of the Jew

• The play stages the victory of dominant groups and manipulates audiences to welcome this victory with satisfaction.

• Shylock, however, is allowed to express his point of view• He voicese his bitterness for being wronged by Christians .I.iii.98-121• He claims sameness (III.i.42-57). • He points out the similarities in the behaviour of Gentiles. V. slave

argument IV.i. 90-102.• Play itself points out the similarities in the behaviour of Gentiles.

(Vengefulness, lack of compassion, treating humans like objects having monetary value, treating women as personal possession to be exchanged)

• Has a social function in Venice. Is usefu and recognized to be so by the Duke.l.

Ambiguity in the representation of Shylock

– A scapegoat, a victim. (Romantic view).– Villainy the consequence of persecution. He is

“the type of a persecuted race” as 19° cent. actor Irving said.

– Indifferentiation. Gentiles as bad as he is

Anti-Semitism in the play• Several characters make anti-semitic remarks, treat

Shylock as an animal, a devil.– e.g. Gratiano (but he is uncouth).

• Shylock is the object of insults and personal attacks. • All characters, including his daughter, depict him in a

negative way.• Yet Shakespeare makes him an almost sympathetic

character. Irving, the actor, “the only gentleman in the play.” Popular role with actors.

• The play manipulates audiences to exult for the Jew’s defeat it also elicits pity for him. Daughter’s elopement. Final scene.

Antisemitism in Early Modern England

• Not many Jews in England in WS’s times.• Expulsion in 1290 under Edward I (because they would not

convert. First expulsion in Europe.)• Campaign for readmission for mercantile reasons.• Jews continued to lend money to Kings and religious institutions.

Reason for their impopularity.• In WS’s days a few Jews lived in Britain.• Queen’s Jewish doctor accused of trying to poison her• Animosity. Seen as practicing black magic. Witchcraft. Mallleus

Maleficarum.• Negative representations in literature, especially drama (WS and

Marlowe). Jew demonized

Marriage contracts reinterpreted

• From exchange of objects of the patriarchal order, to a contract redrawn by women.

• Portia and Jessica’s loves made possible by unlocking father’s property.

• Both Portia and Jessica escape the law of the father yet by temporaily assuming a male identity

• Portia lays down the traditional marriage contract in III.ii149-174.

• Portia undoes original contract and silently rewrites it on different terms.

Topics: economy• In what ways does The Merchant of Venice

anticipate a new bourgeois culture?• The debate between trade and finance (i.e.

lending money for interest). Entrepreneurship (the case of Bassanio)

• The importance and significance of money. Different forms of wealth in the society represented in the play and different approaches to money.

Topics: Women and marriage

• Women as objects of exchange in the patriarchal order. The law of the father.

• New definitions of the marriage contract.• The control of inherited wealth. • Redefinition of he role of men and women in

the new society.

Topics: Diversity

• Is the play anti-semitic?• The case for indifferentiation.• Diversity and minorities in the play.

Topics: Interpretation of the law

• Tradition of common law reinforced. Importance of precedent.

• Importance of interpretation. Quibbles.