Continuing on
with our developing argument that the comedy in Shakespeare’s play is based on
the exposure of bigotry, moral confusion and cultural misunderstandings, we
find that this witty and ironic stratagem is best expressed not least in the
reversal of the usual standards whereby Christian characters trump their Jewish
rivals, romantic lovers fail to achieve the ideals they think they are
expressing in their words and gestures, and the whole pretensions of European civilization
as complete and triumphant proves inadequate to the opening up of new
dimensions of reality in science, philosophy and ethical consciousness.[1]
The Courtroom Scene
Though the courtroom scene is the most complex and famous in the play,
where it is presumed that Shylock’s strict legalist attempt to pursue his bond
for a pound of flesh is set against the allies of Antonio seeking the virtue of
mercy from the Jew and the court, as W. Moelwyn Merchant points out,[2] “The
whole legal structure of the play…is fallacious.” In particular, Merchant argues, “No system of
law permits a man to place his own person in jeopardy….Moreover,” he adds,
“Portia discovers a statute of no obscure import which would, from then proposal
of such a bond, have rendered its terms invalid.” In fact, it is strange that such a minor case
of a forfeit loan comes to the attention of the Duke at all. But then, of course, Shakespeare’s play is
not realistic, and the courtroom scene plays itself in a different space than
real history, and needs to be viewed in different terms.[3] How much of the comedy is symbolic fantasy
and how much rests on certain merely fanciful distortions of either the English
system of law, Venetian regulations and processes, and Jewish customs and laws
set out in rabbinic documents? We do not
go to Shakespeare for historical facts about the kings of England, any more
than we seek geographical facts from the man who gave Bohemia seacoast.
The Elizabethan stage does not represent a realistic map of time and
space, but provides a symbolic surface upon which actors speak and move in
relation to one another. As neoclassical
scholars complained, such a stage—whether in the popular theatres like the Rose
or the Globe, or in smaller private productions for the Inns of Court, where
lawyers, civil servants and their associates congregated, or special
performances for the queen herself—did no observe the three unities of time,
place, and action: that is, that the length of performance should approximate
the time it takes for the action of the drama to happen, just as the area of
the stage should be close to the places where the characters do their deeds,
and that the play should focus on one main action. Shakespeare does not follow these rules. His stage is multiple, simultaneous, and
emblematic: that is, the surface put on view to the audience may contain more
than one place, even at one time, and move in and out of a chronological
sequence of hours, days, months or years—and even sometimes be nowhere and no
time at all. Shakespeare’s plays do not
have a single central plot, with occasional digressions to minor subplots, but
weave together several different actions, at various levels of purported
realism—more than just serious scenes alternating with comic interludes; there
are expositions of related themes at various levels of society, different age
and professional groups, and various contingent degrees of closure and
significance. Thus the several plots in The
Merchant of Venice—and the scenes in which they are articulated—together
weave a kind of tapestry of figurative and literal characters and events.[4]
For that reason, we have to look at the play as something other than a
dramatized modern novel or a stage version of a contemporary film, but rather
as an Elizabethan conceit: a conceit is an elaborate, complex rhetorical
figure, partly realistic, partly fantastic, partly symbolic, partly exemplary,
and so on.[5] Each of the several plots in The Merchant of Venice is interlaced
with the others, and if you pay attention you will see how specific themes,
images, attitudes, and ironic tensions cross over between these scenes. Do not imagine a performance where a curtain
falls and rises between these scenes, with furniture and backdrops indicating
different times and places.[6] Remember that the popular Elizabethan stage,
with its proscenium arch and raised balcony at the rear, was virtually bare,
and that characters walked on and off the stage to change the scene, or from
one side of the stage to another to indicate a new place and a new time. These changes could also include simultaneous
action. For instance, the Casket scenes
in Belmont not only interweave with the development of two other plots—the
arrangement of a loan for Antonio from Shylock and Lorenzo’s conspiracy to
elope with Jessica—but all three sequences of action occur at the same
time. The comical interlude with
Launcelot Gobbo and his father is not a
relaxation for the players or the audience, but a new way to see the
characters, themes, and actions in the rest of the play.
Thus, coming back to the courtroom scene, the editor of the 1968 Penguin
version is correct to say: “The structure of the fourth Act assumes a
relationship between Shylock and Antonio which, described in legal terms, is
grotesque in its complexity…” It is also
better to look closely at the whole scene, if not the whole play as grotesque,
or as Elizabethans would more likely say “antic”. Grotesque
means something mixing categories of thought, styles, genres, levels of reality
and kinds of action in a bizarre and unexpected way. The word “grotesque” was used when a series
of ancient grottos were discovered in Rome, with sunken gardens and elaborate
illustrations of men, plant-life and animals, as well as gods sometimes, all
mixed up and metamorphosing into one another.
The older English term “antic” is no more than “antique” and referred to
something quite similar, though perhaps with more of the notions of
playfulness, madness and carnival subversion about it.
In the courtroom scene, too, Shylock seems to be pressing for a judgment
that would force Antonio to pay in a pound of flesh what he could not repay in
cash, even after the merchant’s friends offer to pay the total back many times
over. Dressed as a young male lawyer, Portia,
serving as Antonio’s defence attorney, argues for two things virtually at once:
first, a show of mercy by Shylock and by the court, and in a speech that seems
to confuse two meanings of mercy, one as leniency and forgiveness, the other as
charity and love, in each case mercy read as a Christian concept set up against
law—and not just against rabbinical (Talmudic) Law which is presumed to be
unjust and cruel, but also Venetian Christian law which needs to be equitable
and fair to the various nationalities who trade with the Serene Republic. The other argument is that the Duke in his
capacity as judge of the court should interpret the law strictly and literally,
forcing Shylock to be guilty of seeking to shed Christian blood—and so turned
into the criminal who deserves punishment.
Cross-dressed as a man, Portia violates more than just decorum and
propriety or takes advantage of the formality of the courtroom to plead her
case, but she breaks essential laws that restrict women’s place in public
life—and, of course, breaks canon law against cross-dressing. Everything she says, therefore, whether true
or not, lacks validity in law. Shylock
himself, pleading in a Christian court,[7] is
always marked as the outsider, the Jew, and though he has restricted rights of
trading in the city, cannot presume on the life of a Christian citizen. It is likely, too, that realizing his
precarious position in law and his awkward social role, is playing up to
Christian prejudices: acting—and perhaps dressing—in the stereotypical image of
the Jewish demon expected by anti-Semites like Antonio.
By pressing the point, and it is contrary to rabbinical law to shed
blood or to put a Christian into an embarrassing, shameful position because
that puts the whole Jewish community at risk, Shylock is trying to do at least
one of two things. For one thing, he may
be attempting to frighten and shame Antonio and his friends into asking
forgiveness from Shylock, not from the financial bond, for which the Jew states
he has no interest, but from the constant mockery in the streets, and more
particularly now from the collusion in stealing his daughter and his wealth.[8] For another, and this is more speculative, as
Florence Amit suggests, Shylock may be seeking a way to get the bulk of his
wealth out of the city and into the hands of Jessica and her new husband
Lorenzo. .
If there has not been a plot against the plot, so that Lorenzo is a
Crypto-Jew who seeks to escape from Venice with his new bride in order to live
more freely—and come out as a Jew in a tolerant place—then at least for Shylock
to show his mercy, forgiveness and love to his daughter and the children she
will eventually have. The late Mrs Amit
based her suggestion on a number of hints in the play, such as Shylock’s claim
to be very ill—so that he will die soon, and his money and property would be
forfeit to the state in all events, once Jessica has eloped; that he therefore
does not care about any forced conversion—although this is part of the fantasy
that a commercial court could require a litigant who loses his case to take
baptism, or that any court in Venice, including the Inquisition, could enforce
such a sentence.
[1] From, now
on, unless otherwise stated, for scholarly purposes I will be using the new
Oxford Edition, especially William
Shakespeare. The Complete Works:
Original-Spelling Edition, eds., Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1986). “The Merchant of Venice” pp. 479-508; and William
Shakespeare, A Textual Companion,
eds. Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, with John Jowett and William Montgomery
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987). “The
Merchant of Venice,” pp. 323-328.
[2] Merchant, “Introduction”, Penguin edition, p.
22.
[3] Shakespeare has put
together a number of sources, some Italian, some French, and others from a more
general Latin tradition., the main influences discussed briefly in the new
Oxford edition of the play (see Note 1).
More importantly for our own reading of the play, as it runs out in the
various sections posted here, the playwright used two main ways of shaping his
own take on the comedy: in the first place,
as it becomes a regular feature of satire in the 17th and 18th
centuries, the hypocrisy and weakness of Christian society is compared to the
intensity and sincerity of faith in Turkish lands; while here in MoV
Shakespeare contrasts the purported sophistication and idealism of the Venetian
elite to the sneakiness, lust and ignorance of their words and actions. In the second place, from his familiarity
with the Jewish—both practicing and covert—groups he met in London, not least
his mistress the so-called Dark Lady, Shakespeare can play with rabbinical
traditions, something further enhanced by the increasing number of Talmudic
works available in Latin translations produced for Protestant communities on
the Continent and in England.
[4] To some degree, of
course, Shakespeare crates dramas to fit the conventions of the large theatres
in London, such as the Globe and the Swan (which could have several thousand
spectators in attendance for afternoon performances), whose roots lie in popular
entertainments of the late medieval period; it should not be forgotten that
most of what we call “medieval” drama in England derives from the late
fifteenth century and carries on straight through to the early seventeenth
century, thus simultaneous with the beginnings of renaissance conventions. Indeed, the Italian renaissance was already
over by the time this movement began to arrive in London and to influence
courtly and urban cultures, and also collided with reformation habits of mind,
perception and social behavior. Only a
few of Shakespeare’s plays were written for either the court itself and so
resemble the elaborate masques that became standard under James I, and fewer
for the private theatres in the City, with their much smaller audiences (perhaps
150-200 persons at most), use of artificial lighting, and expectations of
intellectually up-to-date patrons. A few
of the playwright’s dramas were performed in two or three of these venues and
thus exist in various formats, some of very short duration (an hour and a
half), other much longer (up to four or five hours).
[5] The conceit or conception is related to the ingenious wit of Italy
and Spain in the late Renaissance or Baroque period. John Donne’s “metaphysical conceit” (a term
invented by Dr Johnson in the mid-eighteenth century as a disparagement of
Donne and most of the late Elizabethans) is one kind. Complicated, witty and visually full of puns,
the conceit works at many levels simultaneously; a kind of rebus, trompe l’œil,
riddle and reflexive analysis—and not too far off the mark from midrashic
exegesis either.
[6] This kind of enclosed
stage with representational scenery and acting styles comes mostly after the
Restoration, although some aspects of it were evident in the private manorial
productions during the Puritan Commonwealth.
Much of the new audiences after the return of Charles II from the
Continent consisted of men and women who had grown up outside of England and
were more familiar with French and Italian drama. They had difficulty relating to Shakespeare’s
plays, causing many of the texts to be rewritten to remove the free-flowing
style, the mixed genres, and the multiple plots. Only in the nineteenth century
was Shakespeare revived in formats we would recognize. As we will show in this long essay, much that
belongs to popular understanding of the play and especially to the character of
Shylock belongs to a stage tradition quite at odds with Elizabethan ideas and
production, let alone with the subtleties of Shakespeare himself.
[7] In another section, we
shall discuss the difference between not just canon law and the civil law of
the Venetian Republic, but the Inquisition which had its own version in
Venice. These different versions of
legality have to be seen as metaphors for the kind of English law familiar to
Shakespeare and his audience, common law based on precedent and local custom.
[8] Shylock justifies his
plans by explicit allusion to the tricks played by Jacob against Laban to gain
his wife; and thus brings into question natural law—not just the magic of
making a ewe look at various tinted sticks to promote the birth of various
shades of lambs but what we might call genetic modification, in order to
utilize the laws of heredity Mendel discovered in the nineteenth century, and
God’s laws that actually determine the color of the lambs born.
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