The Merchant of Venice: New Critical Essays.
Voss, Paul J.
The Merchant of Venice: New Critical Essays. Edited by John W.
Mahon and Ellen Macleod Mahon. New York: Routledge, 2002. ISBN 0-415-92999-7. Pp. xiv + 456. $95.00.
This impressive volume, with eighteen new essays, could easily
support a subtitle: "Everything you wanted to know about The
Merchant of Venice but were afraid to ask." The collection contains
a wide variety of essays covering a range of critical issues embracing a
host of theoretical perspectives. Although in places uneven (as
collections of this type must necessarily be), this volume will afford
all students of the play--undergraduates, graduates, and seasoned
scholars--with abundant resources and much thought-provoking material.
The volume clearly stands as a valuable addition to our various
understandings of the play.
Although this short review cannot adequately discuss each essay,
several points merit special mention. The collection begins with a
robust essay granting an overview of the critical reception of this
tantalizing play. Coeditor John W. Mahon has perused, it seems, nearly
everything written about the play, displaying a Herculean effort in
collecting, reading, and synthesizing this vast quantity of material.
Mahon's essay, however, does more than merely summarize. He
attempts to explain how and why The Merchant continues to perplex,
entertain, and upset readers today. As a relatively modest play (2,738
lines) written rather early in Shakespeare's career (most scholars
suggest 1596-97), The Merchant remains a perennial favorite for
high-school classrooms, theater audiences, scholars, and critics.
Mahon makes astute observations, culled from both primary and
secondary sources, that provide fruitful points of departure for the
play. He notes, for example, that Shylock appears in only five scenes
and speaks a modest 300 lines but that he dominates critical commentary
on the play as does no other character from a comedy. Scholars, critics,
and actors remain fascinated with the character. Not surprisingly, this
collection represents that emphasis as well, as a significant number of
the essays either make Shylock their principal focus or allude to him in
conspicuous ways. As Mahon notes, however, the Elizabethan stage did not
have a rich tradition for representing such a character, as only three
Jewish figures had appeared prior to Shylock. Perhaps this uniqueness
contributes to the fascination with him.
Shakespeare, of course, probes deeply into questions of religion
and religious identity in this play. It has become critical commonplace
to accept that The Merchant harshly critiques Christian Venice and
largely exculpates Shylock, turning the defeated money-lender into the
hero of the play. Clearly the Christians in the play stand as flawed
human beings, hardly paragons of virtue, kindness, or charity. However,
the text needs considerable stretching and reworking (not to mention the
absolute omission of several key scenes) in order to support that
accepted reading. If Shylock emerges as the tragic hero and evolves into
the ethical center of the play, what does that suggest? According to John K. Hale, if Shylock manages to upstage the other characters,
"we will have an unresolved, or soured comedy--or even a tragedy.
And so we will not be watching the play which Shakespeare wrote, nor the
design which source-criticism establishes" (195). Hale's essay
on source study, long neglected by modern literary critics, is among the
strongest in the collection.
Hugh Short attempts a revisionist reading of the play, suggesting
that Shylock's conversion not only was a good thing by Elizabethan
standards but also helps make sense of the play. Short focuses on
Shylock's penultimate words, "I am content," spoken in
act 4, scene 1. Although directors, actors, and critics rarely, if ever,
believe Shylock, Short attempts to read the play by taking those words
at face value. What would the play mean if Shylock was content? What
happens to our reading if Shylock begins the conversion process
intellectually and consents willingly, even if reluctantly, to the terms
of the verdict? Short provides an intriguing dilemma, noting that
"if Shylock is not content at the end of the trial scene, then the
harmony of act 5 is a lie, and a vicious one at that" (211). Many
critics are willing to accept the viciousness of act 5.
Clearly, though, Shylock at some level fits perfectly within the
framework of Shakespearean comedy. There is no literary need to upset
the structure of the play and to create a tragedy out of an ostensible comedy. Shakespeare's comedies often include comic villains or
"blocking characters" who serve a disruptive or anti-comic
function. One need only consider Malvolio, Don John, or Egeus. Typically
the comic villain exits the play prior to the ending celebration and
does not participate in the community-building rites of marriage and
consummation. Shylock conforms to that role in most respects. True, his
character is more complex and nuanced than, say, that of Egeus, but his
function as a comic villain in the structure of the play seems rather
manifest.
Two essays, one by Murray J. Levith and another by Joan Ozark
Holmer, examine Shakespeare's debt to Christopher Marlowe. Although
Marlowe died in 1593 at the age of twenty-nine, he left a substantial
body of work and an enduring legacy. Marlowe's bold play The Jew of
Malta may have influenced The Merchant. Holmer, writing about
Shylock's daughter Jessica, notes that "we should highlight
the often underestimated originality of Marlowe and Shakespeare in
creating for the stage essentially good contemporary Jewesses, women
whose motive for eternal salvation outweighs their human frailty"
(108). John Drakakis also examines the character of Jessica in detail
and arrives at a different conclusion. Jessica is "the silent
threat that Venice has blindly, but of economic necessity, incorporated
into itself" (163). Jessica, as Drakakis points out, exists in none
of the source material used by Shakespeare. These instances afford a
rich opportunity to see the mind of the dramatist at work. Hale notes
that Jessica "attracts a modern odium" (191), which is
surprising given her cleverness, her intelligence, and her decision to
marry her choice--not her father's. Her cross-dressing cleverness
mirrors, in fact, some of the most laudable heroines in Shakespearean
comedy.
The collection contains only a single, rather brief essay on
bibliography or the so-called print culture, yet a ready explanation
exists for this relative lack of textual interest. According to John F.
Andrews, the 1600 first quarto, "which seems to have been set into
type with great care by methodical compositors," is a clean text.
Editors who collate the play will discover "no more than a handful
of minor discrepancies" (165).
The collection also includes four essays on performance criticism,
a burgeoning field of interest in Shakespeare studies. Gayle Gaskill
states that The Merchant "no longer holds the supremely popular
place in the Shakespeare canon" that it once held (375), and she
explores the ways in which the play must change in order to make it
"palatable for U.S. audiences." Briefly examining the staging
of Shylock, Jay L. Halio notes that the "U.S. production history of
The Merchant has for over a century presented Shylock as a tragic hero,
the victim of casual racism" (384). The Venetians do indeed exhibit
prejudicial sentiments in the play; however, just how and why those
sentiments make a traditional comic villain the tragic hero is never
fully explained. If Shylock is the tragic hero, one who departs meekly
in act 4 and is not mentioned again (especially not in the festivity of
confusion in Belmont), he is a tragic hero unlike any other. If our
ethical sympathy must center on Shylock, we, as members of an audience,
are required to discount the final act of the play.
The variety of essays helps to define the play and add color and
contrast to the margins of the work. For example, John W. Velz examines
the way Portia transforms from the anxious young virgin into the wily
and confident lawyer through the lens of the "Ovidian
grotesque." John Cunningham and Stephen Slimp, in a long and
learned essay, investigate the ways in which Christian types and emblems
help to illuminate character and meaning. R.W. Desai explores other
forms of racial categories in the play and the "other Others"
in Belmont (305). Desai notes perceptively that six northern suitors
refuse to submit to the authority of Portia's dead father, but
"the three southern suitors--Morocco, Arragon, and Bassanio--tamely
accept the penalty of castration for making the wrong choice; after all,
this is what the prohibition amounts to" (306). While a life of
celibacy and castration are hardly synonymous, Desai's observation
merits pondering.
After reading such a quantity of commentary on a single play, one
gets the impression that, although The Merchant continues to challenge
and fascinate as a play, the critical community may be experiencing a
recession now that the heyday of "high theory" has gone bust.
Many essays, while thoughtful, overlap with other essays and simply move
the same chess pieces over the board in different directions. This is,
obviously, inevitable and maybe even salutary. Our profession is better
off as a result of such work, and we are fortunate to have scholars
intelligent enough to add to the treasury of the world's knowledge.
One could be left, however, with a stark reaction: perhaps, 440 years
after the birth of Shakespeare, we are running out of things to say;
perhaps we have reached the point of diminished returns, saying less and
less about less and less. Another reaction, and one I intend to embrace,
is a continued fascination at the longevity and stamina of Shakespeare
and his plays. He continues to challenge and stimulate, both inside and
outside of the academy. He continues to raise profound questions about
the human experience as his plays examine questions of belief,
redemption, damnation, eros, jealousy, charity, forgiveness, and a host
of other poignant issues. This stands as sufficient testimony to his
towering accomplishment.
Paul J. Voss
Georgia State University
