The Merchant of Venice asks us difficult questions of our assumptions about Shakespeare. The traditions of the Shakespeare-Heritage industry (sometimes referred to as ‘bardolotry’) argue that Shakespeare deserves his place at the centre of the literary canon because he was a genius, and, beyond that, managed in his plays to capture the essence of what it means to be human, to express the entire range of human emotions, predicaments and situations, and to dramatise for us characters whose appeal is universal and can permeate meaningfully across centuries and national and cultural boundaries. This Shakespeare is a spokesman for the human condition, a writer whose understanding of human nature anticipates conflicts and tensions that had not yet arisen in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and whose text will always shed valuable light on contemporary events.
If you want Shakespeare to be this person, you cannot permit him to be racist. In this version of Shakespeare, therefore, The Merchant of Venice is a play about tolerance, a play that asks us to look beyond the boundaries of our own cultural definitions and accept people for who they are, not according to the stereotypes of the racial groups they belong to. Shylock’s famous petition in 3.1., ‘Hath not a Jew eyes?’, is read as a humanist plea of the author’s to strip away prejudice and look to the essential common humanness of each person.
But does the text substantiate this
reading? There is another version of Shakespeare to contrast with this, and
that is a Shakespeare who belongs to his time. Unfortunately, this means the
image of Shakespeare as an empathetic liberal-humanist does not hold, as
sixteenth century
·
Stage Jews: From the King Herod of the medieval mystery plays, through vice
figures and Christopher Marlowe’s one-dimensionally evil Barabas
in The Jew of Malta (1589), Jews were familiar stage villains.
·
The representation of other
racial groups: Read Portia’s description of her
suitors in 1.2. While not necessarily racist, is hide-bound by national
stereotype. Also her dislike of
· The bonding of the Christians through the baiting of Shylock: Salerio, Solanio, Lorenzo, Graziano, Launcelot and, of course, Antonio, all participate in the ridiculing and verbal attacks on Shylock thereby reinforcing their similarities at the expense of Shylock’s difference.
· The use of the word ‘Jew’: This word is used to describe Shylock three times as often as his actual name. Used as an appellation it both de-individuates and denotes him racially rather than personally.
·
Conversion: Christianity is an evangelical religion that calls upon every good
Christian to spread the word of the gospel around the world. Conversion,
through force or persuasion, is an element of its tradition (think of the
crusades, the conversion to Christianity of many Native Americans, the
nineteenth-century missionaries in
· The reification of women: ‘Reification’ means treating people as if they were commodities or things. Bassanio talks of Portia as if she were a prize to be won. Shylock compounds the elopement of Jessica with the theft of diamonds and ducats.
How we read this play is dependant on
how we read the past.
We cannot blame the past for being the past. Any simplistic accusation that Shakespeare is racist is naďve and censorious. Similarly, forgiving The Merchant of Venice for being what it is because it is old is an imperious and somewhat patronising attitude that suggests that people from previous generations are like children and don’t know what they are doing, or don’t know better because they are not as sophisticated as us. Reading historical literature involves a complex negotiation with the culture that produced it. There’s no reason to suppose that there was a uniformity of beliefs in the world any more than there is now
Christian Jew
New Testament Old Testament
Capitalism Usury
Mercy Vengeance
Judicial justice Literal justice
The law-court The pound of flesh
A feminine sphere of
influence. Portia as prize and
object of mystic quest, a ‘golden fleece’.