Perspectives on Political Science

ISSN: 1045-7097 (Print) 1930-5478 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vpps20

Contract, Friendship, and Love in The Merchant of

Venice

Lee Trepanier

To cite this article: Lee Trepanier (2014) Contract, Friendship, and Love in The�Merchant�of
Venice, Perspectives on Political Science, 43:4, 204-212, DOI: 10.1080/10457097.2014.948735

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10457097.2014.948735

Published online: 29 Sep 2014.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 1220

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Citing articles: 1 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=vpps20
Perspectives on Political Science, 43:204–212, 2014
Copyright C Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1045-7097 print / 1930-5478 online
DOI: 10.1080/10457097.2014.948735

Contract, Friendship, and Love

in The Merchant of Venice
LEE TREPANIER

Abstract: Shakespeare shows how enforceable contract not
only undergirds the city of Venice, which makes a multi-
cultural society possible, but its corrosive effects on non-
contractual relationships like friendship, love, and marriage.
This is evident in the decisions, actions, and relationships
of Antonio, Bassanio, Portia, and Jessica. Although Shake-
speare concludes the play on a happy note, the conclusion
one can reach is that, despite its advantages, regimes based
on commerce and contract fail to create the conditions for
friendship, love, and marriage to flourish.
if a pound of flesh were demanded—for otherwise the law
would lose its legitimacy and all trade and justice would cease
to exist. As Antonio observes about his bond of flesh with
Shylock, who had demanded its fulfillment:
The Duke cannot deny the course of laws;
For the commodity that strangers have
With us in Venice, if it be denied,
Will much impeach the justice of the state,
Since that the trade and profit of the city
Consisteth of all nations (III.iii.26–31).3

Keywords: commerce, contract, Shakespeare, The Mer- Although in this particular case the enforcement of contract
chant of Venice seems unreasonable, the great benefit to a city like Venice
that is founded and governed by commerce and contract is
that motives of self-interest, utility, and profit override the

S
hakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice has been
natural tendency to exclude, persecute, or kill strangers.4
interpreted in numerous ways that range from
Christian and Jews are able to coexist, albeit acrimoniously,
focusing on the roles of women and marriage
in Venice to exchange goods and services. Instead of exclud-
to examining questions of justice and mercy to
ing or killing Jews, Christians seek to make a profit with or
exploring the appropriate relationship between
out of them and vice versa. Prejudice still exists in Venice
Christian and Jews.1 While most critics have
but persecution and murder do not.
paid particular attention to the character Shylock and the
The Christian commandment of loving thy neighbor ap-
themes associated with him, I look at the figures Antonio,
pears to have failed as a political principle to organize the
Bassanio, Portia, and Jessica to show how their decisions, ac-
city: commerce, contract, and profit have provided the path
tions, and relationships reveal the moral limitations of Venice
to stability, cooperation, and toleration. But to maintain this
as a commercial republic.2 Specifically, I explore how Venice,
peace, impartial and enforceable justice is required. Even if
as a commercial republic that is based on contract, has a
it were against his own inclinations, the Duke must conduct
corrosive effect on non-contractual, moral relationships like
the trial of Antonio to maintain the rule of law in Venice
friendship, love, and marriage. By examining each of these
(IV.i.1–33).5 If an exception were made in this case, Shylock
characters, I illustrate how a world of commerce and con-
correctly asks why should the Duke not break other contracts,
tract has a tendency to reduce all relationships to motives of
such as the purchasing of slaves (IV.i.89–103; 38–39)? The
self-interest, utility, and profit.
answer is obvious enough: chaos would result if contracts
From the play it is made known that Venice is a city
were no longer enforced, because nobody would be able to
based on commerce with its law of contract enforced—even
trust one another. To retain stability in the city and the le-
gitimacy of his rule, the Duke therefore must enforce the
Lee Trepanier is a Professor of Political Science at Saginaw contract of a pound of flesh. As we know later in the play,
Valley State University. the contract is enforced but with the qualification that a “if
204
October–December 2014, Volume 43, Number 4
thou dost shed / One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and
goods / Are by the laws of Venice confiscate” (IV.i.309–11).
Under this new condition, Shylock cannot fulfill his end of
the contract and, consequently, will suffer the penalties for it.
This theme of Venice as a commercial republic based
on contract has been explored by other scholars and has
been even presented in recent performances.6 For exam-
ple, some like Lars Engle and Fredrick Turner argue that
the play is about patterns of exchanges, purchases, and
pledges that range from the physical to the abstract, while
other critics look at the use of bonds—natural, emotional,
commercial—as the theme that unites the play.7 Another set
of commentators contend that the practice of usury is the
central feature of The Merchant of Venice, with even some
pointing out the historical and contemporary economic par-
allels to play.8 This contextualization of the play continues
in more recent studies that place The Merchant of Venice in
a judicial and legal context.9
However, these studies have neglected the effect that
contractual relations in a commercial republic have on
non-contractual ones like friendship, love, and marriage.10
Although previous studies have focused either on the con-
tractual relationships or the non-contractual ones, this article
explores the interaction between these two types of rela-
tionships. Critics who see the play as a pattern of exchanges
and purchases or revolving around the question of bonds
fail to address the question about the incommensurability
of non-contractual relations with contractual ones. And for
those scholars who either historically contextualize or draw
interesting parallels between the play and contemporary
economics, they overlook how the play charts the moral,
social, and political implications of a politics where its public
sphere is the domain of calculation, commerce, and contract.
This article remedies this inattention, although it is indebted
to these previous studies that have tangentially touched on
this topic: the effect of contract and commerce on friendship,
love, and marriage and their social and political ramifications.
ANTONIO’S FRIENDSHIP
The Merchant of Venice opens with Antonio’s speech about
his own sadness, with the explanation of it escaping him:
In sooth, I know not why I am so sad;
It wearies me, you say it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it
What stuff ‘tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn.
And such a want-wit sadness makes of me
That I have much ado to know myself (1–7).
His companions, Solanio and Salerio, suggest that commerce
or love as possible causes of his sadness, but these options
are dismissed by Antonio (I.i.41–45, 47). The cause of Anto-
nio’s sadness has befuddled critics, who have offered several
explanations about the cause of his sadness from suppressed
homoerotic feelings for Bassanio to a Christ-like pursuit of
spiritual perfection.11 However, I suggest another possibil-
ity: Antonio is sad because, on the one hand, he desires a
relationship that is more meaningful than one predicated on
contracted; but, on the other hand, he recognizes that such
205
a relationship is difficult, if not impossible, in the commer-
cial republic of Venice. In other words, Antonio longs for
a friendship that is rooted in some non-contractual value,
like Aristotelian or Ciceronian virtue, instead of utility or
profit.12
Because of its commercial ambitions, Venice makes mean-
ingful relationships more difficult. In fact, Antonio’s own ex-
perience in commerce has trained him to view relationships
solely in contractual terms. He is a successful merchant who
takes calculated risks, such as spreading his fortune into
three different ventures at sea and whose appetites usually
do not outstrip his resources (I.i.177; I.iii.61–64, 156–59;
III.ii.266–71). Because of his self-discipline and success-
fully weighing benefits against risks, Antonio needs not con-
cern himself with material wants. What he does lack is a
non-contractual relationship like friendship that is based on
moral values like virtue. But because of his inexperience in
this realm, Antonio’s attempts of forming a non-contractual
friendship with Bassanio fails because he mistakes the ma-
terial for the moral. This overcompensation by Antonio not
only leads to a failure to establish a friendship based on virtue
but almost costs him his life.
Of course, friendship can be based on a contract of self-
interest, utility, and profit, but the highest form of friend-
ship, according to Aristotle, is a non-contractual one that is
founded on virtue.13 This perfect form of friendship is be-
tween people who are good and similar with respect to virtue,
where they wish for each other’s good because they are good
themselves. It also requires a type of equality of exchange,
for friends receive and wish the same thing from and for
each other (1158b1–2). For good people, they would want to
receive and wish virtue from and for their friends. For Aristo-
tle, it is this type of friendship that is most noble, stable, and
lasting as long as both parties remain good (1156b10–14).
To love a friend is, in the best sense, to love “one’s other
self” and thus be able to participate in the perfect economy
of both sentiment and virtue. Antonio aspires for this type
of friendship but, given his commercial soul, he does not
know how to achieve it because of his trade, training, and
dwelling.
When Bassanio, a young nobleman whose generous habits
have eaten up his inheritance, enters the scene, there is not one
word about Antonio’s countenance exchanged between them.
Antonio instead inquires about Bassanio’s secret pilgrimage,
revealing that Antonio was waiting to receive Bassanio be-
cause the latter had made it known that once again Antonio’s
assistance is needed (I.i.119–21). Bassanio initially ignores
Antonio’s question and rather confesses of his profligacy but
refuses to complain about it because:
. . . my chief care
Is to come fairly off the great debts
Wherein my time, something too prodigal
Hath left me gag’d. To you, Antonio,
I owe the most in money and in love,
And from your love I have a warranty
To unburthen all my plots and purposes
How to get clear of all the debts I owe (I.i.127–34).
It is important to note that when asked about the lady of
the secret pilgrimage, Bassanio not only responds with a
206
discussion of his finances but that he sees the marriage to
“a lady richly left” as a way to repay his debts to Anto-
nio (I.i.161). Bassanio, who appears to be Antonio’s closest
companion, is not only profligate with his and his friend’s
monies, but he partially, if not predominantly, sees the world
in terms of self-interest, utility, and profit.14
Thus, the chief care of Bassanio is not the lady of Belmont
but his debts and particularly the debts he owes Antonio.
But the money he has received from Antonio was gratis.
It is the means by which Antonio signifies something that
cannot be assigned a calculated value: his love (I.i.153–60,
184–85). For Antonio, one can owe money but one cannot
owe love, at least as he has defined it. This is evident in
the way that Antonio offers more than a loan to Bassanio
but “My person, my extremist means / Lie all unlock’d to
your occasions (I.i.138–39). He even agrees to use a pound
of his own flesh as collateral to Shylock, whom he clearly
detests, to loan Bassanio the three thousand ducats (I.iii.
152–81).
Clearly, Antonio’s actions are not rational, which is sur-
prising, because he is a successful merchant that requires one
to calculate risk correctly. What Antonio does not understand
is that perfect friendship is not grounded in the absolute re-
pudiation of contract for the needless sacrifice of oneself but
rather is rooted in a type of reciprocity based on moral val-
ues like virtue. This reciprocity also must be relatively equal,
something Antonio does not understand in his confusion to
trade a pound of his own flesh for the value of Bassanio’s
friendship. The material merely symbolizes the moral signif-
icance of friendship and is not, as Antonio wrongly thinks,
the substitution of it.
But after his life is spared, Antonio continues to perceive
the world in contractual and commercial terms. When Por-
tia reveals to everyone that she is Balthazar, to whom Bas-
sanio, on the urging of Antonio, gave his wedding ring as
a token of gratitude for savings his friend’s life, everyone
is stunned (IV.i.452–54). In revenge to Bassanio for relin-
quishing his wedding ring to Balthazar, Portia promises him
that she will be as liberal with their marriage bed as he was
with his wedding ring (V.i.223–29). After Bassanio pleads
for forgiveness, Antonio speaks in support of his friend and
describes what had transpired as a series of commercial
transactions:
I once did lend my body for his wealth,
Which but for him that had your husband’s ring
Had quite miscarried. I dare be bound again,
My soul upon the forfeit, that your lord
Will never more break faith advisedly (V.i.249–53).
Portia, in turn, replies back in the language of commerce
and contract that Antonio shall be Bassanio’s “surety”—the
person who assumes the debts of another—in Bassanio’s and
Portia’s new pledge of marriage. The return of the ring to
Bassanio is not from Portia to Bassanio but from Portia to
Antonio, who then gives it back to Bassanio. In a sense,
Bassanio participates in the marital contract of Portia and
Bassanio.
Shakespeare leaves it open to whether Antonio will even-
tually understand the value of non-contractual relationships
Perspectives on Political Science
like friendship and marriage, although it is evident that
Antonio acknowledges his debt to Portia, when he proclaims,
after hearing his ships have safety returned, “Sweet lady,
you have given me life and living” (V.i.286). Whether Anto-
nio means his “life and living” only literally—his pound of
flesh and ships—or metaphorically is unresolved in the play,
thereby leaving open the question whether moral values like
friendship can exist in Venice. Regardless of how one inter-
prets these questions in The Merchant of Venice, friendship
is an important good for us and something without which we
cannot live. But on what foundation friendship should and
can be based is one of the questions that Shakespeare’s play
seems to be asking us.
BASSANIO’S FRIENDSHIP AND MARRIAGE
As important as it may be for the good life, friendship
is ultimately subordinate to marriage in the play.15 At his
trial Antonio twice places his friendship with Bassanio as
something to be valued higher than Bassanio’s marriage.
When he believes that he is about to die, Antonio instructs
Bassanio:
Commend me to your honorable wife,
Tell her the process of Antonio’s end,
Say how I lov’d you, speak me fair in death;
And when the tale is told, bid her be judge
Whether Bassanio had not once a love (IV.i.273–77).
Bassanio replies that he would sacrifice everything he
possesses—his life, his wife, and his estate—“Here to this
devil [Shylock], to deliver you” (IV.i.286–87). Watching this
in the disguise of Balthazar, Portia remarks that “Your wife
would give you little thanks for that / If she were by to hear
you make the offer” (IV.i.288–89). The remark is humor-
ous because of its implied truth: Antonio’s and Bassanio’s
friendship is meaningful but is not amendable to be part of
the commercial transaction vis-à-vis the marriage between
Bassanio and Portia. Nevertheless, both Antonio and Bas-
sanio repeat this mistake after Antonio is saved. Although
Bassanio initially resists Balthazar’s request for the wedding
ring, he eventually confers it to Balthazar after Antonio’s
urging (IV.i.452–54).
Back in Belmont when Portia hears that Bassanio had
bestowed his wedding ring to Balthazar, she immediately
chastises Bassanio for not understanding its worth: “If you
have known the virtue of the ring, / Or half her worthiness
that gave the ring, / Or your own honor to contain the ring”
(V.i.199–201). The ring symbolizes the moral relationship
of love instead of contract, which Bassanio had failed to
understand. In his defense, Bassanio provides a threefold
explanation of why he gave the ring to Balthazar: (1) the
lawyer was man and not a woman; (2) the lawyer had saved
the life of Antonio and therefore he was bounded by honor
to give it him; and (3) if Portia were there, she would have
concurred with his actions (V.i.209–22).
Bassanio omits the fact that Antonio had urged him to give
the ring to Balthazar—an explicit admission about valuing
friendship over marriage—and instead resorts to an argument
of honor. But Bassanio wrongly understands honor as a type
October–December 2014, Volume 43, Number 4
of contract: Antonio’s life is worth Bassanio’s marriage. But
marriage and friendship are incommensurable goods: they
cannot be compared and therefore cannot be traded. Each
is valued as its own good with marriage being a superior
one over friendship. Honor properly understood would have
Bassanio recognize that Balthazar should be honored as
should his friendship with Antonio but not at the expense
of his marriage with Portia.
But why is marriage superior to friendship? Portia’s reply
to Bassanio’s explanation provides a clue to answering this
question:
Let not that doctor e’er come near my house.
Since he hath got the jewel that I loved,
And that which you did swear to keep for me,
I will become as liberal as you,
I’ll not deny him any thing I have,
No, not my body nor my husband’s bed (V.i.223–28).
Shakespeare suggests that marriage is superior to friendship
because of its procreative aspect. Traditionally, marriage was
the way to create and socialize children into society: friend-
ship, for all its virtues and value, cannot do this. Furthermore,
the sexual and procreative act of marriage not only produces
children but unifies the body and soul of both partners. This
spiritual and physical unity is symbolized in the wedding
ring, which should be accorded the highest honor.
The fact that Bassanio fails to understand this, or is unable
to act upon this when it conflicts with friendship, reveals
his contractual thinking about relationships: friendship and
marriage are commensurable goods that can be exchanged as
circumstances permit. It is only when he is confronted with
the possibility that Portia could also see their marriage as
contractual and commensurable (e.g., having an affair with
the lawyer) that Bassanio recognizes the error of his ways, as
Portia observes: “In both my eyes he doubly sees himself”
(V.i.244). Of course, the marital conflict is resolved when
Portia reveals that she is in fact Balthazar, but Portia requires
Bassanio to swear an oath of fidelity and “on credit” that will
be guaranteed by his friendship with Antonio (V.i.266–70).
If Bassanio were to violate his oath, then his friendship with
Antonio is to be forfeit.
Both Antonio and Bassanio fall short in participating in
meaningful relationships: Antonio is still alone at the end of
the play as he was in the beginning, and his friendship with
Bassanio has become subordinate to Bassanio’s and Portia’s
marriage. Although Antonio aspires for perfect friendship, he
was not able to achieve it because his companions, including
Bassanio, behave out of self-interest, utility, and profit rather
than out of moral values like virtue. As a result, Antonio
mistakes money as the essence rather than as a symbol of
non-monetary values like friendship and engages in irrational
behavior to the point of literally risking self-annihilation as
proof of these moral values. At the end of the play, it is
unclear whether Antonio has learned how non-contractual
relations like friendship and marriage should be understood
and valued.16
Bassanio fares better than Antonio, but it is not clear
whether he has learned to value marriage and friendship
for their own sake. Bassanio agrees that his friendship with
207
Antonio will be the collateral to guarantee his marital oath,
and therefore his friendship will be subordinate to his mar-
riage; otherwise, Portia will be unfaithful. However, this un-
derstanding is explained and agreed to in the contractual
language of Venice in the supposedly non-contractual place
of Belmont. There is no evidence in the play, particularly
in the final act, that Bassanio has actually learned the value
of marriage, or even friendship, on moral grounds; or that
he knows their value but lacks the social tools to partici-
pate in a meaningful relationship. Although Antonio acted
out of a misguided sense of friendship in giving a pound
of his own flesh to Shylock, Bassanio relinquished his wed-
ding ring to Balthazar at Antonio’s urging because of the
debt he owed Antonio. It is entirely possible and very likely
that Bassanio ultimately submitted to Portia’s demands of
valuing their marriage over his friendship not because he un-
derstands the value of marriage in and of itself but because
he fears that he will lose his wife and his newly acquired
estate.17
PORTIA’S AND JESSICA’S MARRIAGES
Like Antonio in the beginning of the play, Portia suffers
from weariness of “this great world” in Belmont because she
is bound by her father’s will that decrees she wed only the
individual who passes his trial of caskets (I.ii.1–2, 21–35).
This trial requires suitors to solve a riddle that filters out
those who want to marry Portia for the wrong reasons. In
effect, Portia’s father has bound his daughter by a contract
that transcends his own death. Although Belmont appears
to have a different set of values compared to Venice, it is
actually governed by the same laws of contract.18
The father–daughter relationship is formulated in contrac-
tual terms and is symbolized by the three caskets trial. With
contractual relations undergirding the city, Belmont pos-
sesses the same advantages as Venice with its welcoming
of foreigners to woo Portia’s hand: Frenchmen, Moroccans,
Spaniards, Germans, English (I.ii.39–105; II.vii, ix). But,
like Venice, this contractual foundation of Belmont also has
a corrosive effect on the characters’ non-contractual relation-
ships because they perceive all values as commensurate with
one another. This moral deterioration is most evident in the
marital relationship between Bassanio and Portia, with es-
pecially the latter relinquishing his wedding ring so easily.
An examination of this marriage will show how contractual
Belmont leads both characters to think and act out of self-
interest.19
Both Bassanio and Portia’s father conflate Portia’s per-
sona with the estate of Belmont in their desire to count her
as property over which to have exclusive dominion. Portia
stands poised to be transferred to the winning suitor, the
portrait hidden in one of the three caskets that symbolizes
her objectification (III.ii.115). But despite being bound by
her father’s will, Portia is able to influence the trial’s out-
come, when Bassanio, whom Portia favors over the other
suitors, is helped by her song in selecting the correct casket
(III.ii.63–72).20 Bassanio is able to depict the clues in Portia’s
song as he remarks, “The world is still deceiv’d with orna-
ment,” and proceeds to select the lead casket (III.ii.74). The
208
contract is fulfilled as guided by Portia’s song to a conclusion
that both Portia and Bassanio desire. Portia has a husband
that she prefers and Bassanio has claim to “This house, these
servants, and this same myself / Are yours—my lord’s!—I
give them with this ring” (III.ii.170–71).
However, Bassanio’s correct choice of the lead casket ends
up exacerbating rather than diminishing the problem of im-
porting contractual relations into the marital world. On win-
ning Portia, Bassanio immediately becomes indebted to his
new wife, who has positioned herself as a creditor rather
than as a prize to be handed over. In response to Bassanio’s
victory, Portia sets about the task of assessing her worth:
I would not trebled twenty times myself,
A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich,
That only to stand high in your account,
I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends
Exceed account (III.ii.152–55).
In other words, Portia presents herself as type of investment
that appreciates value over time and can be redeemed at some
point in the future.
Although Portia initially trusts Bassanio with her house,
servants, and herself, she later changes the terms of the con-
tract where she becomes both owner and possessor of Bas-
sanio (III.ii.166–67, 170–71). Portia declares that “Since you
[Bassanio] are dear bought, I will love you dear,” indicating
that Bassanio is the debtor to her, after she learns that Bas-
sanio has only credit from a friend whose life now hangs in
the balance (III.ii.313). This assessment of her relationship
with Bassanio echoes her earlier statement, where she said,
“when you part from, lose, or give away / Let it presage the
ruin of you love, / And be my vantage to exclaim on you”
(III.ii.172–74). This inversion of the usual situation, which
the husband typically imposes fidelity on the wife, is not
only a demonstration of feminism but a form of feminism
that conceives and explains the non-contractual relationship
of marriage in contractual terms.21
Bassanio similarly perceives their relationship in contrac-
tual terms of debts and credits, as he correctly has identified
the “gentle scroll” to “come by note, to give and to receive”
(III.ii.139–40). This “note” is the bond that must be “con-
firm’d, sign’d, ratified” by Portia, the person who will pro-
vide him the necessary funds (III.ii.148). The only medium
Bassanio has at his disposal to seal the deed is not funds, be-
cause these are borrowed from Antonio, but “Only my blood
speaks to you [Portia] in my veins” (III.ii.176). Bassanio can
only offer his blood as collateral to ratify the nuptial bonds
between him and Portia. This abstraction of one’s own body
as a type of property to be exchanged exists because of the
contractual mindset that exists in both Venice and Belmont:
the former in the characters Antonio, Shylock, and Bassanio
and the latter in the figures Portia and her father.22
This creditor–debtor perspective of marriage also appears
earlier in the play, when Salerio compares Lorenzo’s rela-
tionship to Jessica in the same language: “To seal love’s
bonds new made, than they are wont / To keep obliged
faith unforfeited!” (II.vi.6–7). Like Portia, Jessica is bound
to her father, but unlike Portia, this bond is also religious
as well as paternal. Jessica has a choice to honor the bond
Perspectives on Political Science
with her father, Shylock, or follow her desires to flee with
Lorenzo. But although Portia remained faithful to her fa-
ther’s will, even when she was tempted to break it, Jes-
sica chooses to break both the paternal and religious bond
with her father (III.ii.13–14).23 Because “Our house is hell,”
Jessica decides to join her lover, along with converting to
his religion: “O Lorenzo, / If thou keep promise, I shall end
this strife, / Become a Christian and thy loving wife” (II.iii.
19–21).
Both women also are associated with caskets and wealth:
Portia with the casket trial and Jessica with the “caskets” she
throws to Lorenzo that are stolen from her father (II.vi.35).
Once freed from her father’s restraint, Jessica and Lorenzo
spend their stolen wealth with carelessness, even trading the
“turquoise,” which symbolizes the betrothal of her father and
mother, for a monkey (III.i.118–23). Jessica’s callousness to
her father contributes to Shylock’s increasingly dehumaniza-
tion but also highlights the contrast between her behavior
and Portia’s. While Jessica has recklessly spent their stolen
money, Portia has carefully conserved her wealth to make
her husband a debtor in their relationship. If it were not
Portia’s assistance at the end of the play, the marriage be-
tween Jessica and Lorenzo probably would have ended in
calamity.
The relationship between Jessica and Lorenzo therefore is
treated sympathetically in The Merchant of Venice, yet there
are uneasy undertones that mark Jessica’s breaking of her
paternal, and perhaps religious, contract with her father.24
Other than the character Launcelot, Jessica is the only per-
son who breaks a contract in the play.25 Like Antonio at the
end of The Merchant of Venice, it is not clear whether Jes-
sica’s and Lorenzo’s marriage will be successful, because
they do not renew their nuptial vows. By contrast, Portia and
Bassanio repledge themselves to each other, with using An-
tonio’s friendship with Bassanio as collateral, and seem to
be headed toward future happiness.
Except Shylock, those characters who conceive and act
in contractual terms are successful, whereas those who do
not, such as Antonio and Jessica, fare less well. Because
both Venice and Belmont are cities founded on contract,
the regimes make those who act non-contractually, whether
agreeing to unreasonable loans or breaking paternal bonds,
melancholic without knowing the motive behind it.26 They
sense the corrosive effects that contract and commerce have
on non-contractual relations like friendship, love, and mar-
riage but are unable to operate successfully outside the con-
tractual foundations of Venice and Belmont. Only those who
are able to calculate correctly like Bassanio and Portia will be
content in such a regime. Values incommensurate with con-
tract must either be re-conceptualized in contractual terms
to be successful or face failure in a world governed by self-
interest, utility, and profit.
CONCLUSION
The pattern of exchanges enforced by contracts is one,
if not the, dominant theme in The Merchant of Venice. The
three thousand ducats Bassanio borrows from Antonio is
both the price Bassanio pays to enter the casket trial and
October–December 2014, Volume 43, Number 4
the contractual equivalent of a pound of Antonio’s flesh as
collateral for Shylock’s loan. The leaden casket that Bassanio
chooses is the one that contains the portrait of Portia, which
in turns symbolizes his right to marry her. Portia interprets
that right as a right of possession over her property and person
as symbolized by the wedding which she gives to her new
husband. As the betrothed of Bassanio, she then offers many
times the value of the three thousand ducats to ransom the
life of Antonio (III.ii.299–302).
But at the trial Shylock refuses, claiming that a pound of
Antonio’s flesh is no different than the flesh of any other
animal (IV.i.89–103). Prior to Jessica’s betrayal, Shylock
detested Antonio, but this hatred was moderated by practi-
cal motives; after Jessica’s unfaithfulness, Shylock has be-
come monomaniacal in his quest for revenge (I.iii.160–70;
III.i.116–30).27 In the demand of a pound of Antonio’s flesh,
the Duke describes Shylock’s mind as unchangeable:
A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch,
Uncapable of pity, void and empty
From any dram of mercy (IV.i.4–6).
Despite the Duke’s repeated pleads—and Balthazar’s famous
account—of mercy, Shylock is adamant that the contract
be enforced. Unlike the Duke’s plead for mercy, which is
based on utilitarian concerns (i.e., a potential loss of profit),
Balthazar’s entreaty is rooted in values that are religious and
moral (IV.i.17–33; 184–205). By tempering justice, mercy
blesses both the giver and receiver of the contract, thereby
making both participants divine-like. But for Shylock, justice
is enough. His pursuit to fulfill the contract, even at the cost
of someone else’s life, is a reflection of the moral limitations
of Venice as a commercial republic based on contract.
Balthazar returns the favor to Shylock with a strict in-
terpretation of the contract that not one drop of blood be
taken otherwise “thy land and goods / Are by the laws of
Venice confiscate / Unto the state of Venice,” for “as thou
urgest justice, be assur’d / Thou shalt have justice more than
thou desir’st” (IV.i.310–11, 315–16). Even when Shylock
asks only for the loan’s principal, Balthazar refuses on the
grounds that “He shall have merely justice and his bond”
and then charges and sentences him for attempted murder
(IV.i.339; 346–63). Ultimately, Shylock retains his life but
loses his fortune and religion, as he is forced to convert to
Christianity (IV.i.381–91).28
After sparing Antonio’s life, Balthazar mischievously de-
mands Bassanio’s wedding ring as the wage for this service,
thus transforming Antonio’s pound of flesh into Portia’s ring
(IV.i.426–28). Later in Belmont, Portia demands to see the
ring and feigns jealousy at its loss, accusing Bassanio of giv-
ing it away to another woman and threatening to sleep with
the lawyer, to whom Bassanio gave the ring (V.i.223–29).
When Portia finally relents and returns Bassanio his ring, she
gives it first to Antonio who in turn gives it back to Bas-
sanio, thus renewing her wedding vow with Bassanio on the
collateral of her husband’s friendship with Antonio.
Thus, The Merchant of Venice reveals the moral limitations
of a commercial regime based on contract and the corrosive
effects it has on non-contractual relationships like friend-
ship, love, and marriage. This is evident in the decisions,
209
actions, and relationships of Antonio, Bassanio, Portia, and
Jessica in the play: Antonio foolishly risks his life out of
friendship; Bassanio views friendship as commensurate with
marriage; Portia perceives of her marriage in contractual and
commercial terms; and Jessica’s breach of contract leads to
unhappiness. Although he ends the play on a happy note,
Shakespeare has given us a cast of characters who break
paternal bonds, fail to understand friendship, and perceive
marriage in contractual and commercial terms. The conclu-
sion one can reach is that, despite its advantages, regimes
based on commerce and contract ultimately fail to create the
conditions for non-contractual relations to flourish.
Among early modern writers, Venice had enjoyed mythical
status because of its political institutions and ideals of repub-
licanism.29 As a successful model of a mixed constitution,
Venice had developed an elaborate system of governance to
reduce the influence of fraction and enjoyed an economic
prosperity that appeared to follow from its political organi-
zation. How the Venetians were able to accomplish this feat
was of interest to the English and perhaps even to us today.30
What is interesting is that Shakespeare shows us not only
the advantages of the commercial and contractual repub-
lic with its multicultural society and economic abundance
but also its shortcoming in terms of human relations and
moral values. Despite its watery depth, Venice’s commer-
cial and contractual foundations make human relationships
superficial and merely transactional. The republic’s moral
limitations with its corrosive effects on friendship, love, and
marriage are inextricably tied with the benefits of religious
tolerance, rule of law, and material wealth. It would seem that
this is the price that the citizens of any commercial and con-
tractual republic must pay for in exchange for these goods.
NOTES
1. I thank referees Richard Avramenko, Brianne Walsh, and the Uni-
versity of Wisconsin Political Theory workshop for their criticism of this
article.
Most critics have focused on the themes of justice and mercy as, respec-
tively, represented by the character Shylock and the city Venice and Portia
and Belmont. E. K. Chambers, Shakespeare: A Survey (London: Sidgwick
& Jackson, 1925), 106–17; J. W. Lever, “Shylock, Portia and the Values
of Shakespearian Comedy,” Shakespeare Quarterly 3 (1952): 383–86; John
Russell Brown, The Merchant of Venice (London: Methuen, 1955); C. L. Bar-
ber, Shakespeare’s Festive Comedy (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1959), 163–91; W. H. Auden, “Brothers and Others,” in The Dryer’s Hand
and Other Essays (London: Faber & Faber, 1963), 218–37; Nevill Coghill,
“The Theme of The Merchant of Venice,” in Twentieth Century Interpreta-
tions of “The Merchant of Venice,” ed. Sylvan Barnet (Englewood Cliffs: NJ:
Prentice Hall, 1970), 108–13; Albert Wertheim, “The Treatment of Shylock
and Thematic Integrity in The Merchant of Venice,” Shakespeare Studies
6 (1970): 75–87; Raymond B. Waddington, “Blind Gods: Fortune, Justice,
and Cupid in The Merchant of Venice,” English Literary History 44 (1977):
458–77.
For other themes in the play, refer to Barbara K. Lewalski, “Biblical Al-
lusion and Allegory in The Merchant of Venice,” Shakespeare Quarterly
13 (1962): 327–43; Thomas H. Fujumura, “Mode and Structure in The
Merchant of Venice,” PMLA 81 (1966): 449–511; Peter G. Phialas, Shake-
speare’s Romantic Comedies (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1966); Danson Lawrence, The Harmonies of The Merchant of Venice
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978); Isabella Wheater, “Aristotelian
Wealth and the Sea of Love: Shakespeare’s Synthesis of Greek Philosophy
and Roman Poetry in The Merchant of Venice,” The Review of English Stud-
ies, New Series 44 (1993): 16–36.
Scholars also have looked at the role of women in the play. Camille Slights,
“In Defense of Jessica: The Runaway Daughter in The Merchant of Venice,”
210
Shakespeare Quarterly 31 (1980): 357–68; Karen Newman, “Portia’s Ring:
Unruly Women and Structures of Exchanges in The Merchant of Venice,”
Shakespeare Quarterly 38 (1987): 19–33; Lynda Boose, “The Comic Con-
tract and Portia’s Golden Ring,” Shakespeare Studies 20 (1988): 241–54;
Carol Leventen, “Patrimony and Patriarchy in The Merchant of Venice,” in
The Matter of Difference: Materialist Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare, ed.
Valerie Wayne (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1991), 57–79; Olvia Delgado de Torres,
“Reflections on Patriarchy and the Rebellion of Daughters in Shakespeare’s
Merchant of Venice and Othello,” Interpretations 21 (1994): 333–51.
Finally, there are commentators who believe there is no coherent plot or
theme in the play. Leo Salinger, Shakespeare and the Tradition of Com-
edy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), 298–317; Norman
Rabkin, “Meaning and The Merchant of Venice,” in Shakespeare and the
Problem of Meaning (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 1–32;
David N. Beauregard, “Sidney, Aristotle, and The Merchant of Venice:
Shakespeare’s Triadic Image of Liberty and Justice,” Shakespeare Stud-
ies 20 (1988): 33–48; Derek Cohen, Shakespeare’s Motives (London:
Macmillan, 1988); John Lyon, The Merchant of Venice (Boston: Twayne,
1988).
2. For critics who see Shylock as the pivotal figure in the play, refer to
John W. Draper, “Usury in The Merchant of Venice,” Modern Philology 33
(1935): 37–47; E. C. Pettet, “The Merchant of Venice and the Problem of
Usury,” Essays and Studies 31 (1945): 19–33; C. L. Barber, Shakespeare’s
Festive Comedy, 163–91; Frank Kermode, “The Mature Comedies,” in Early
Shakespeare, eds. John Russell Brown and Bernard Harris (New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 1961), 220–24; Allan Bloom, “On Christian and Jew,” in
Allan Bloom with Harry V. Jaffa, Shakespeare’s Politics (New York: Basic
Books, 1964), 13–33; Paul N. Siegel, “Shylock, the Elizabethan Puritan,
and Our Own World,” in Shakespeare in His Time and Ours (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1968), 337–38; John R. Cooper, “Shy-
lock’s Humanity,” Shakespeare Quarterly 21 (1970): 117–24; Lawrence
Danson, The Harmonies of The Merchant of Venice, 1–18; Marc Shell, “The
Wether and the Ewe: Verbal Usury in The Merchant of Venice,” Kenyon
Review 1 (1979): 65–92; René Girard, “‘To Entrap the Wisest’: A Reading
of The Merchant of Venice,” in Literature and Society, ed. Edward W. Said
(Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1980), 100–19; Burton Hatlen,
“Feudal and Bourgeois Concepts of Value in The Merchant of Venice,”
in Shakespeare: Contemporary Critical Approaches, ed. Harry R. Garvin
(Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1980), 91–105; John Barton, “Ex-
ploring a Character: Playing Shylock,” in Playing Shakespeare (London:
Methuen, 1984), 169–80; Richard Arneson, “Shakespeare and the Jewish
Question,” Political Theory 13 (1985): 85–111; Derek Cohen, “Shylock
and the Idea of the Jew,” in Shakespearean Motives (New York: St. Mar-
tin’s Press, 1988), 104–18; Samuel Ajzenstat, “Contract in The Merchant
of Venice,” Philosophy and Literature 21 (1997): 262–78; Martin D. Yaffe,
Shylock and the Jewish Question (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press,
1997); Jay Michaelson, “In Praise of the Pound of Flesh: Legalism, Multi-
culturalism, and the Problem of the Soul,” Journal of Law 98 (2005): 1–31;
Susannah Heschel, “From Jesus to Shylock: Christian Supersessionism and
“The Merchant of Venice,” Harvard Theological Review 99 (2006): 407–31;
Gorman Beauchamp, “Shylock’s Conversion,” Humanitas XXIV (2012):
55–92.
3. Citations of the play are from G. Blackemore Evans et al., eds.,
The Riverside Shakespeare (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1974),
254–85.
4. Both Bloom and Torres make this point explicitly. Allan Bloom,
“On Christian and Jew,” 14–16; Olvia Delgado de Torres, “Reflections
on Patriarchy and the Rebellion of Daughters,” 339. For more about the
sources that influenced Shakespeare’s understanding of Venice, refer to
Bloom’s first footnote as well as endnotes 8, 9, 17, 29, and 30 of this
article.
5. For interpretations of the court scene as a conflict between law and
equity or justice and mercy, refer to endnote 1 as well as Maxine MacKay,
“The Merchant of Venice: A Reflection of the Early Conflict Between Courts
of Law and Courts of Equity,” Shakespeare Quarterly 15 (1964): 371–75;
Andrews Mark E. Law versus Equity in The Merchant of Venice (Boulder:
Colorado University Press, 1965); George W. Keeton, Shakespeare’s Legal
and Political Background (London: Pitman, 1967), 132–50; Ruth M. Lev-
itsky, “Shylock’s as Unregenerate Man,” Shakespeare Quarterly 28 (1977):
243–63.
6. A recent production that emphasizes commerce in the play was
Daniel Sullivan’s New York production in Central Park in 2010. Ben Brant-
ley, “Theater Review: The Merchant of Venice, “Railing at a Money-Mad
World,” June 30, 2010, http://theater2.nytimes.com/2010/07/01/theater/re
views/01merchant.html?n=Top/Reference/Times Topics/Subjects/T/Thea
ter& r=0moc.semityn.2retaeht&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1348624665-6C3Jo
xzn81A7UMTrD+CmkA;
Perspectives on Political Science
Stephen Greenblatt, “Shakespeare & Shylock,” The New York Review
of Books, September 30, 2010, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/
2010/sep/30/shakespeare-shylock/?pagination=false.
7. Sigurd Burckhardt, “The Merchant of Venice: The Gentle Bond,”
English Literary History 29 (1962): 239–62; MacKay, “The Merchant of
Venice: A Reflection of the Early Conflict between Courts of Law and
Courts of Equity”; Robert Hapgood, “Portia and the Merchant of Venice:
The Gentle Bond,” Modern Language Quarterly 28 (1967): 19–32; John
P. Sisk, “Bondage and Release in The Merchant of Venice,” Shakespeare
Quarterly 20 (1969): 217–23; E. F. J. Tucker, “The Letter of the Law
in The Merchant of Venice,” Shakespeare Survey 29 (1976): 93–101; Jan
Lawson Hinely, “Bond Priorities in The Merchant of Venice,” Studies in En-
glish Literature 20 (1980): 217–39; William Chester Jordan, “Approaches
to the Court Scene in the Bond Story: Equity and Mercy or Reason and
Nature,” Shakespeare Quarterly 33 (1982): 49–59; Lars Engle, “‘Thrift is
Blessing”’: Exchange and Explanation in The Merchant of Venice,” Shake-
speare Quarterly 37 (1986): 20–37; Charles Spinosa, “Shylock and Debt
and Contract in The Merchant of Venice,” Cardozo Studies in Law and
Literature 5 (1993): 65–85; “The Transformation of Intentionality: Debt
and Contract in The Merchant of Venice,” English Literary Renaissance
24 (1994): 370–409; Frederick Turner, Shakespeare’s Twenty-First-Century
Economics. The Morality of Love and Money (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1999).
8. C. L. Barber, “The Merchants and the Jew of Venice: Wealth’s Com-
munion and an Intruder,” in Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Mer-
chant of Venice, ed. Sylvan Barnet (Englewood Cliffs: NJ: Prentice Hall,
1970), 11–32; Shell, “The Wether and the Ewe”; William Chester Jordan,
“Approaches to the Court Scene in The Bond Story: Equity and Mercy or
Reason and Nature,” Shakespeare Quarterly 33 (1982): 45–59; Donna M.
Kish-Goodling, “Using ‘The Merchant of Venice’ in Teaching Monetary
Economics,” The Journal of Economic Education 29, no. 4 (1998): 330–39;
Suzanne Penuel, “Castrating the Creditor in “The Merchant of Venice,”
Studies in English Literature 44 (2004): 255–75. For the methodology of
understanding the play in a historical context, refer to Walter Cohen, “The
Merchant of Venice and the Possibilities of Historical Criticism,” English
Literary History 49 (1982): 765–89.
9. For those who argue that the practice of humans being used as col-
lateral was a common one during Shakespeare’s time, refer to Theodore B.
Leinwand, Theater, Finance and Society in Early Modern England (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Linda Woodbridge, ed., Money
and the Age of Shakespeare: Essays in New Economic Criticism (New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Valerie Forman, Tragicomic Redemp-
tions: Global Economics and the Early Modern English Stage (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008); Natasha Korda, “Dame Usury:
Gender, Credit, and (Ac)counting in the Sonnets and The Merchant of
Venice,” Shakespeare Quarterly 60 (2009): 129–53; Amanda Bailey, “Shy-
lock and the Slaves: Owning and Owning in The Merchant of Venice,”
Shakespeare Quarterly 62 (2011): 1–24.
10. Harp makes a comparison of risk taking in business and love, but
he does not explore the origins or how these parallel activities are related
in the play, whereas Sharp believes that gift giving rather than contractual
consent is the dominant relationship among the characters, thereby severing
the connection between non-contractual and contractual relations. Shirley
and Kerrigan look at the use of promises and swearing in Shakespeare’s
play, which is similar to contracts but lack their binding force. Frances
Shirley, Swearing and Perjury in Shakespeare’s Plays (London: Allen &
Unwin, 1979); Ronald A. Sharp, “Gift Exchange and the Economies of
Spirit in ‘The Merchant of Venice,”’ Modern Philology 83 (1986): 250–65;
William Kerrigan Shakespeare’s Promises (Baltimore: John Hopkins Uni-
versity Press, 1999); Richard Harp, “Love and Money in The Merchant of
Venice,” Modern Age (Winter 2010): 37–44.
11. For those who attribute the cause of Antonio’s sadness to religious
or philosophical reasons, refer to Lawrence W. Hyman and Thomas H. Fuj-
mura, “Antonio in The Merchant of Venice,” PMLA 82 (1967): 649–50; Allan
Holaday, “Antonio and the Allegory of Salvation,” Shakespeare Studies 4
(1968): 109–18; R. Chris Hassel Jr., “Antonio and the Ironic Festivity of The
Merchant of Venice,” Shakespeare Studies 6 (1970): 67–74; J. A. Bryant Jr.,
“‘The Merchant of Venice’ and the Common Flaw (For C.T.H.),” The Se-
wanee Review 81 (1973): 606–22; Monica J. Hamill, “Poetry, Law, and the
Pursuit of Perfection: Portia’s Role in The Merchant of Venice,” Studies in
English Literature 18 (1978): 229–43; David Lowenthal, Shakespeare and
the Good Life (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), 147–72; Henry
S. Turner, “The Problem of More-than-One: Friendship, Calculation, and
Political Association in The Merchant of Venice,” Shakespeare Quarterly 57
(2006): 413–42.
Other critics have argued that Antonio’s condition is due to the conflict
between friendship and marriage. John D. Hurrell, “Love and Friendship
October–December 2014, Volume 43, Number 4
in The Merchant of Venice,” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 3
(1961): 328–41; Lawrence W. Hyman, “The Rival Lovers in The Merchant
of Venice,” Shakespeare Quarterly 21 (1970): 109–16; Walter F. Eggers Jr.,
“Love and Likeness in The Merchant of Venice,” Shakespeare Quarterly 28
(1977): 327–33; Alice N. Benston, “Portia, the Law, and the Tripartite Struc-
ture of The Merchant of Venice,” Shakespeare Quarterly 30 (1979): 384–85;
Cynthia Lewis, “Antonio and Alienation in ‘The Merchant of Venice,”’ South
Atlantic Review 48 (1983): 19–31; Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and
Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 3–22; Michael
Zuckert, “The New Medea: On Portia’s Comic Triumph in The Merchant
of Venice,” in Shakespeare’s Political Pageant: Essays in Literature and
Politics, eds. Joseph Alulis and Vickie Sullivan (New York: Rowman &
Littlefield Publishers, 1996), 3–36.
For explanations of Antonio’s sadness as suppressed homosexual feelings,
refer to Graham Midgley, “The Merchant of Venice: A Reconsideration,”
Essays in Criticism 10 (1960): 119–33; W. H. Auden, “Brothers and Oth-
ers,” in The Dryer’s Hand and Other Essays (London: Faber & Faber, 1963),
218–37; Steven Patterson, “The Bankruptcy of Homoerotic Amity in Shake-
speare’s Merchant of Venice,” Shakespeare Quarterly 50 (1999): 9–32.
Finally, there are those who believe that Antonio’s melancholy is motiveless.
Janet Spens, An Essay on Shakespeare’s Relation to Tradition (Oxford: B.
H. Blackwell, 1916), 45; John Middleton Murray, Shakespeare (New York:
Harcourt, Brace, 1936), 155; Bernard Grebarnier, The Truth about Shylock
(New York: Random House, 1962), 215–19.
12. It is not unreasonable to assume that some ethical presuppositions
that informed the late Elizabethan period had roots in classical Greek and
Roman philosophies. It is well known that Aristotle’s Ethics and Cicero’s
On Duties were part of the intellectual and educational culture of the period;
and these specific works were cited by the widest range of writers on the
most diverse questions. The Ethics appeared in both public and private
inventories two or three times more often than the Politics; and On Duties was
ubiquitous in English grammar-school classrooms throughout the sixteenth
centuries for instruction in Latin. Neal Wood, “Cicero and Political Thought
of the Early English Renaissance,” Modern Language Quarterly 51 (1990):
185–207; David Harris Sacks, “The Greed of Judas: Avarice, Monopoly,
and the Moral Economy in England, ca. 1350-ca.1600,”Journal of Medieval
and Early Modern Studies 28 (1998): 263–307; Howard Jones, Master
Tully: Cicero in Tudor England (Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1998), 120–42;
Henry Turner, The English Renaissance Stage: Geometry, Poetics, and the
Practical Spatial Arts 1580-1630 (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006), 47–50, 62–63,
65. Also refer to Isabella Wheater, “Aristotelian Wealth and the Sea of Love:
Shakespeare’s Synthesis of Greek Philosophy and Roman Poetry in The
Merchant of Venice.”
13. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. H Rackham, Loeb Classical
Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), 1156b8–19. Subse-
quent citations are in text. For the other types of Aristotelian friendships,
utility and pleasure, refer to 1156a6–30. For more about Aristotle’s account
of friendship, refer to Stephen Salkever, “Taking Friendship Seriously: Aris-
totle on the Place(s) of Philia in Human Life,” in Friendship and Politics:
Essays in Political Thought, eds. John von Heyking and Richard Avar-
menko (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008), 53–83; John
von Heyking, “‘Sunaisthetic’ Friendship and the Foundations of Political
Anthropology,” International Political Anthropology 1 (2008): 179–93.
14. Bassanio does not seem to operate entirely out of self-interest, be-
cause the next lines in his description about Portia indicate that he does rec-
ognize virtue “And she is fair and, fairer that word, / Of wondrous virtues”
(I.i.161–63). However, this conflict between self-interest and virtue mani-
fests itself again when Bassanio decides to value his friendship with Antonio
over his marriage to Portia, when Bassanio gives his wedding ring, albeit
reluctantly, to Balthazar (IV.i.452–54).
15. This is the consensus among critics. John D. Hurrell, “Love and
Friendship in The Merchant of Venice”; Lawrence W. Hyman, “The Ri-
val Lovers in The Merchant of Venice”; Walter F. Eggers Jr., “Love and
Likeness in The Merchant of Venice”; Alice N. Benston, “Portia, the Law,
and the Tripartite Structure of The Merchant of Venice”; Cynthia Lewis,
“Antonio and Alienation in ‘The Merchant of Venice”’; Michael Zuck-
ert, “The New Medea: On Portia’s Comic Triumph in The Merchant of
Venice.”
16. Both Lowenthal and Holmer argue that Antonio does achieve a type
of self-knowledge at the end of the play: Lowenthal sees Antonio as rep-
resentative of classical philosophical knowledge in contrast to revelation,
whereas Holmer interprets Antonio as being bound in a more perfect love
with Bassanio and Portia. Although Antonio is now part of the community
formed by Bassanio’s and Portia’s marriage, it is not evident in the play
that Antonio has learned what friendship truly is. Lowenthal, Shakespeare
and the Good Life, 147–48, 170–72; Joan Ozark Holmer, “The Educa-
tion of The Merchant of Venice,” Studies in English Literature 25 (1985):
307–35.
211
17. It is important to note, particularly for the next section of this arti-
cle, that by Shakespeare’s time, the notion that a woman could be owned
by her father or husband was being challenged. While fathers and poten-
tial husbands did have a claim to a woman’s legal persona, they had no
rights to her actual person. Furthermore, married women were not con-
sidered property, and a woman’s interest in property could not be entirely
denied. Probate evidence of the period indicates that women had control
over property, particularly over land, than what the law had admitted. This
was particularly true for women of higher social status or who possessed
greater wealth than their husbands. Finally, sealed bonds that dictated a
daughter’s marital choice would have been unusual during Shakespeare’s
period, because daughters had some say in their choice of a husband. David
Seipp, “The Concept of Property in Early Common Law,” Law and History
Review 12 (1994): 29–91; Amy Louise Erickson, Women and Property in
Early Modern England (London: Routledge, 1993); B. J. Sokol and Mary
Sokol. Shakespeare, Law, and Marriage (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2003).
18. For critics who disagree with this similarity between Belmont and
Venice, refer to endnote 1.
19. It is surprising that critics have failed to see the contractual and
commercial language and thinking of Portia. For other interpretations of
her role, refer to Robert Hapgood, “Portia and the Merchant of Venice:
The Gentle Bond”; Herbert S. Donow, “Shakespeare’s Caskets: Unity in
The Merchant of Venice,” Shakespeare Studies 4 (1968): 86–93; Monica J.
Hamill, “Poetry, Law, and the Pursuit of Perfection: Portia’s Role in The Mer-
chant of Venice”; Joan Ozark Holmer, “Loving Wisely and the Casket Test:
Symbolic and Structural Unity in The Merchant of Venice,” Shakespeare
Studies 11 (1978): 53–76; Alice N. Benston, “Portia, the Law, and the Tri-
partite Structure of The Merchant of Venice”; Harry Berger Jr., “Marriage
and Mercifixion in The Merchant of Venice: The Casket Scene Revisited,”
Shakespeare Quarterly 32 (1981): 155–62; Karen Newman, “Portia’s Ring:
Unruly Women and Structures of Exchanges in The Merchant of Venice”;
Lynda Boose, “The Comic Contract and Portia’s Golden Ring”; Michael
Zuckert, “The New Medea: On Portia’s Comic Triumph in The Merchant
of Venice”; Barbara Tovey, “The Golden Casket: An Interpretation of The
Merchant of Venice,” in Shakespeare as Political Thinker, eds. John E. Alvis
and Thomas G. West (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2000), 261–87.
20. Tovey points out that Portia’s song contains several words that rhyme
with “lead,” such as “bred” and “head.” Barbara Tovey, “The Golden Casket:
An Interpretation of The Merchant of Venice”; also see Michael Zuckert,
“The New Medea: On Portia’s Comic Triumph in The Merchant of Venice.”
21. For more about a feminist interpretation of the play, refer to the critics
listed in endnotes 1, 19, and 23.
22. Other references where Bassanio abstracts his body as part of his
marital contract with Portia can be found in III.ii.183–85 and V.i.177–79.
23. For more about the relationship between fathers and daughters in the
play, refer to Leo Rockas, “‘A Dish of Doves’: The Merchant of Venice,”
English Literary History 40 (1973): 339–51; Camille Slights, “In Defense
of Jessica: The Runaway Daughter in The Merchant of Venice”; Karen
Newman, “Portia’s Ring: Unruly Women and Structures of Exchanges in
The Merchant of Venice”; Lynda Boose, “The Comic Contract and Portia’s
Golden Ring”; Carol Leventen, “Patrimony and Patriarchy in The Merchant
of Venice”; Olvia Delgado de Torres, “Reflections on Patriarchy and the
Rebellion of Daughters in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice and Othello.”
24. Jessica is one of the few, if not only, Shakespeare female characters,
who at the end of the play does not reconcile with her father and is possibly
happy. When patriarchal approval is withheld, the result is often the fate of
a Juliet or Desdemona. A significance difference between Jessica and these
other two heroines is her conversion to Christianity, whereas both Juliet and
Desdemona remain Christian throughout their plays. Jessica’s faith in her
husband and religion to save her suggest an explanation as to why her fate
may be different: “I shall be sav’d by my husband, he hath / made me a
Christian (III.v.19–20)!
25. For more about Launcelot, who breaks the master-servant contract in
the play, refer to René E. Fortin, “Launcelot and the Uses of Allegory in The
Merchant of Venice,” Studies in English Literature 14 (1974): 259–70.
26. It is interesting to note that the melancholy of Antonio at the beginning
of the play parallels the melancholy of Jessica and Lorenzo at the beginning
of the second scene of the fifth act. Both parties are sad but they do not know
why.
27. Harold C. Goddard, The Meaning of Shakespeare (Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 1951), 96, 98–101; Sigurd Burckhardt, “The Merchant
of Venice: The Gentle Bond,” 248.
28. Shylock’s forced conversion strikes most critics as controversial. For
the numerous interpretations on its significance, refer to endnote 2.
29. For more about republicanism in early modern Europe, refer to J. G.
A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the
Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1975),
212
333–60; Blair Worden, “Classical Republicanism and the Puritan Revolu-
tion,” in History & Imagination: Essays in Honor of H.R. Trevor-Roper, eds.
Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Valerie Peltonent, and Blair Worden (London: Gerald
Duckworth, 1981), 182–200.
30. Markku Peltonen shows how widely republican attitudes extended
among Elizabethan writers. Classical Humanism and Republicanism in
English Political Thought, 1570-1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1995); also refer to Nicolai Rubenstein, “Italian Political Thought
1450-1530,” in The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450-1700,
ed. J. H. Burns with Mark Goldie (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Perspectives on Political Science
Press, 1991), 30–65; David Norbrook, Writing the English Republic: Po-
etry, Rhetoric, and Politics, 1627-1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1999), 15–20; Poetry and Politics in the English Renaissance (Ox-
ford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
For republicanism in Shakespeare’s own work, refer to Andrew Hadfield,
“Shakespeare and Republicanism: History and Cultural Materialism,” Tex-
tual Practice 17 (2003): 461–83; Shakespeare and Republicanism (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Julia Reinhard Lupton, Citizen-
Saints: Shakespeare and Political Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2005), 75–101.