Transcript The Merchant of Venice I - UCSB Department of English

The Merchant of Venice
I
1597-98, some two or three years after MND.
No fairies, comic mechanicals; rather the hard-headed
world of trade, money-lending, law.
Even Bassanio’s motivation: “In Belmont is a lady richly
left.”
Even conclusion of love story threatens nightmare:
Portia: “Since he hath got the jewel I loved . . .” V, I ,
224.
The “Tragedy of Shylock” embedded in the comedy.
Dating:
The interpretive challenge of the
play:
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After the Holocaust, or Shoah, any anti-Semitism
must take on a different meaning for our world.
So any modern production must mean
differently from what the play meant to
Elizabethans.
More than any other of Shakespeare’s plays, we
see changes, alterations of meaning.
But play itself seems to suspend contradictory
meanings.
Thus a wonderful test case of what we might
mean by “classic.”
Shylock and anti-Semitism
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How did Elizabethans understand Judaism?
Few Jews in Elizabethan London – they had
been expelled three centuries earlier. But
doubtless some in London.
Usury and moneylending.
Case of Rodrigo Lopez in 1593, a converso
Portuguese Jew.
Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta. Barrabas as villain.
Interpretive challenge of Shylock
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How to interpret anti-Semitism
historically?
Anti-Semitism of Gratiano.
But also of Antonio and Bassanio.
Shylock’s hatred of Antonio: I, 3, 38ff.
Shylock in court scene.
Shylock’s “conversion” at end of court
scene.
Shylock as oppositional figure
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Antonio’s generosity vs. Shylock’s usury.
Shylock as figure of locks, keys, bonds.
Shylock as “heavy” father – like Egeus in
MND.
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Wants to kill Antonio.
Genre: comedy drives out the villain.
But the logic of Shylock’s position
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“Signor Antonio, many a time and oft . . .”
I, 3, 103.
Jewish money-lending as a system within
Christian economy.
The logic of interest.
Charging of interest up to 10% legal in
England.
“Usury”.
Shylock’s initial intent?
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“I hate him for he is a Christian.” I, 3, 39ff.
Do we know what does he intend in “this
merry bond”? Simply humiliation?
“A wilderness of monkeys”
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Shakespeare’s “narrativizes” Shylock’s hatred.
Jessica’s elopement, II, 6.
Solanio’s mockery of Shylock, II, 9: “my
daughter, oh my ducats, my daughter.”
Salarino and Solanio’s taunting of Shylock, III, 1,
21ff.
“what’s his reason? I am a Jew.”
His bitterness at Jessica’s betrayal.
“It was my turquoise; I had it of Leah when I
was a bachelor. I would not have given it for a
wilderness of monkeys.”
Merchant as a play of ideas
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Reinserting Shylock into the larger play.
Shylock as part of the Venetian system.
His opposition to Antonio structural.
But he undergirds the Venetian economy.
Bassanio in Belmont depends on Shylock’s
money.
Isn’t Shylock absolutely right about the
contradictions in Venetian/Christian economy?
Venetian law must underwrite Shylock’s bond –
otherwise?
The bond
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3,000 ducats for 3 months, no interest.
But default means 1 pound of flesh.
Flesh, death, becomes equal to the
interest?
Pay or you die: Antonio takes this risk.
“Merry bond” turns unmerry.
What’s missing on both sides?
Shylock and Portia/Balthasar
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“Which is the merchant here and which
the Jew.” IV, 1 172.
“Then the Jew must be merciful.”
Why?
“The quality of mercy is not strained . . .”
Self-annihilation of absolute justice – this
necessitates mercy.
Absolute denial of mercy – no physician
standing by.
Justice and Mercy
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Denial of mercy leads to Shylock’s
undoing.
Is he shown mercy?
His “conversion”.
Does Elizabethan unfamiliarity with
Judaism allows this as mercy?
Idea consuming character at this point?
No more heard of Shylock until Nerissa’s
letter at end of play.
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But this leads to the “ring plot”.
How does the ring plot connect to the
bond plot?
And how is Belmont different from Venice?