The Merchant of Venice

Merchant.
From the Roxburghe Ballads.
University of Victoria Library.

Love and economics are intertwined in a story that climaxes in a courtroom

showdown. An often uncomfortable comedy, The Merchant of Venice is
known for its sharp division between the commercial world of Venice and
the seemingly idyllic world of Belmont. A modern reader will be engaged by
Shakespeare's portrait of the Jewish merchant, Shylock, and the overtones of
anti-semitism in the play (whether these attitudes were Shakespeare's or
those of some of the characters in the play).

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.

Order in the sexes

Adam and Eve (Detail). Saenredam.

Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Seethe full image.

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.

Shylock and depictions of Jews

Shylock presents a difficult problem for many modern audiences and critics.
Is he a stereotypical "Jew," similar toMarlowe's villain Barrabas from The
Jew of Malta, or is he a sympathetic figure intended to criticize the antiSemitism of Shakespeare's time? Complicating this question is the modern
tendency to want to elevate Shakespeare above the prejudices of his time.
We can say with certainty that Shylock is not without motivation. His
treatment at the hands of the Christian merchants is decidedly un-Christian:
they spit on him, call him a dog, and finally take half his money and force
him to convert. All this in spite of Shylock's famous plea for sympathy:
Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affectations,
passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases,
healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter as a
Christian is? If you prick us do we not bleed? (3.1.50-4)

Love and money

"Angels" -- coins illustrating St. Michael.

The Merchant of Venice is ambivalent in its presentation of merchants in

love. Bassanio's love for Portia is at least in part motivated by financial
need. She is an attractive woman but she also has enough money to pay
Bassanio's debts. Marriage is presented not only as a union of two people in
love, but also as a union of their wealth and property. Compare too the love
of Jessica and Lorenzo, where the young lovers rapidly spend the
money.Jessica, in effect, steals from her father.
In 1571 a law was passed allowing the payment of up to 10% interest on
loans. The effect of the law was actually to reduce interest rates; by making
interest legal, the black market rates that prevailed earlier-- which were
much higher--became unnecessary.

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).

The settings: Venice and Belmont

Venice. Reproduced in Social England, ed. H.D.Traill. University of Victoria Library.

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).

The music of the spheres?

The bitter-sweet dialogue between the married

couple, Jessica and Lorenzo, at the beginning of the final act of The
Merchant of Venice, is one of Shakespeare's most direct passages on the
nature of music. Lorenzo describes the "moonlight" on the stage (remember
that the Globe had no lighting effects!):
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night
Become [are appropriate to] the touches of sweet harmony.
(5.1.60-64)

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)

Finally, Lorenzo comments on the kind of person who is not moved by

music.

The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted.
(5.1.89-94)

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).