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Merchant.
From the Roxburghe Ballads.
University of Victoria Library.
Legal comedy
Shakespeare wrote several plays that hinge on the fair administration of
laws, and especially on the conflicting demands of justice and mercy. The
Comedy of Errors and Measure for Measure, along with The Merchant of
Venice, are comedies that contain the possibility of a protagonist getting
killed because of an inflexible law.
Shakespeare's solution in The Merchant of Venice is similar to that of many
modern "courtroom dramas": an inspired lawyer (really Portia in disguise)
gets Bassanio off on a technicality. As well as being highly dramatic, the
scene explores in some of Shakespeare's finest language the debate between
the seemingly conflicting demands of justice and mercy. Paradoxically,
Portia pleads eloquently for mercy, but seems merciless herself when
Shylock fails to respond.
The concept of equality between the sexes would have seemed very foreign
to most in Shakespeare's day: Adam was created first, and Eve from his
body; she was created specifically to give him comfort, and was to be
subordinate to him, to obey him and to accept her lesser status. A dominant
woman was unnatural, a symptom of disorder.
The medieval church had inculcated a view of women that was split
between the ideal of the Virgin Mary, and her fallible counterpart, Eve, or
her anti-type, theWhore of Babylon*. Unfortunately, the Virgin Mary was
one of a kind, so there was often a general distrust of women; Renaissance
and Medieval literature is often misogynistic.
Queen Elizabeth cultivated the view that she was the ideal; Joan of Arc, on
the other hand (at least in Shakespeare's play Henry VI, Part One), was seen
as adevil*. (More on "disorderly" forms of sexuality* in the Renaissance.)
The accepted hierarchy of the sexes was so much taken for granted that it
influenced even the literature of farming.
As the age became more dependent on money and capital, credit and
interest-bearing loans became more frequent. Antonio, in The Merchant of
Venice, would have been very much the exception in Shakespeare's England,
lending out money gratis, and thus bringing down the rate of "usance" in
Venice (see 1.3.41-42).
Shakespeare makes use of two distinct settings for The Merchant of Venice.
Venice, as in Shakespeare's time, is the city of commerce where wealth
flows in and out with each visiting ship. Venice is also a cosmopolitan city
at the frontier of Christendom, beyond which lies Asia, Africa, and the
Ottoman Empire. Society in Venice is a predominantly male world, where
the single female, Jessica, is locked up in her house, and can only escape in
disguise as a male.
Belmont, on the other hand, is the home of Portia and her mysterious
caskets. It is a place of romance and festivity to which the victorious
Christians retire at the end of the play. Like the forests in As You Like
It and A Midsummer Night's Dream, Belmont is an idealized "green world"
that is removed from the ruthlessness of the real world. Unlike Venice, it is
controlled by women (though Portia's dead father lingers).
Lorenzo then discusses the stars, each in its separate "orb," or sphere, each
sphere contributing to the heavenly music that only the angels (cherubins)
can here. Ordinary humans, clothed in their earthly, decaying bodies, cannot
hear the music of the spheres:
Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
(5.1.65-71)
You may remember that Shylock is disturbed when he hears that there will
be musical masques in the street on the night he is invited out, and asks
Jessica to lock up the house (2.5.29-37).