The Merchant of Venice: the Play, and Why a Law Course Sets It
Chapter Two
Syllabus topic 1.1, "The Merchant of Venice - William Shakespeare"
Pages 7 to 10 of 406
In one line
A merchant borrows money for a friend from a moneylender who hates him, and agrees that if he does not repay on the day, the lender may cut a pound of flesh from his body; the ships are lost, the lender sues on the agreement in open court, and the case is decided by a woman disguised as a lawyer.
In the wording a student can write in an examination: The Merchant of Venice is a comedy by William Shakespeare, written about 1596 to 1597 and first printed as a quarto in 1600, which turns on a penal bond between the merchant Antonio and the Jewish moneylender Shylock, and whose fourth act is a full-length trial scene in the ducal court of Venice.
The four things you must be able to say about this play
Almost every question set on this text is an application of one of these four, so learn them as facts before you learn anything else.
One. It is a comedy that contains a near execution. A comedy in Shakespeare's sense is a play that ends in marriage rather than in death, not a play that is funny throughout. This one ends with three married couples in a moonlit garden, and it gets there through a scene in which a man is stripped to be cut open in a courtroom.
Two. It has two plots, joined by money. The bond plot is Antonio, Bassanio and Shylock in Venice. The casket plot is Portia and her suitors in Belmont. The join is the three thousand ducats: Bassanio borrows them to go courting, so the casket plot is paid for by the bond plot, and the winner of the casket plot then decides the bond plot.
Three. Its central character is a Jewish moneylender in a Christian city. Shylock lends at interest, which the Christians say they do not do, and he is abused in the street by the man who comes to borrow from him. Whether the play condemns that treatment or shares it is the question every essay on this text is really asking.
Four. It is a play about the difference between what a document says and what is fair. That is the law question, and it is the reason this text and not another opens the syllabus.
Where it came from
Shakespeare did not invent the story. The bond plot comes from a tale in Il Pecorone, a collection of Italian stories by Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, published in 1558. The casket plot comes from the Gesta Romanorum, a medieval collection of moral tales that existed in English. A student does not need the sources for an answer, but the fact that the flesh bond is an old folk story matters for one reason: it tells you the play is not a report of a real Venetian case, and an essay that treats it as legal history has started wrong.
The Merchant of Venice: the Play, and Why a Law Course Sets It
The play also stands beside Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta, an earlier play with a monstrous Jewish villain. Shakespeare's Shylock is written after it, and is a great deal harder to hate.
Venice, and why the setting is doing work
Venice in the play is a trading republic. Its wealth arrives by sea in ships called argosies, and its merchants stand at the Rialto, the exchange, hearing news of which ships have come home. Two features of that city are load-bearing in the plot.
First, a trading city lives on credit. Antonio's money is not in his house, it is at sea, so a rich man can be unable to raise three thousand ducats in cash. That single fact is what sends Bassanio to a moneylender.
Second, a trading city lives on the certainty of its contracts. Foreign merchants will only deal in a place where the courts enforce what was agreed. Shylock says this himself in the trial, and it is why the Duke cannot simply tear up the bond. The play makes the reader feel the pressure of a rule that is unjust in this case and necessary in general, which is a lawyer's problem exactly.
The people, in the order you will meet them
| Name | Who they are |
|---|---|
| Antonio | The merchant of the title. Sad, rich on paper, devoted to Bassanio, contemptuous of Shylock. |
| Bassanio | Antonio's friend, who has spent his fortune and wants to court Portia. |
| Shylock | A Jewish moneylender of Venice, the father of Jessica, and the plaintiff in the trial. |
| Portia | A rich heiress of Belmont, bound by her dead father's will, and the disguised lawyer of Act IV. |
| Nerissa | Portia's waiting-woman, who marries Gratiano and appears as the lawyer's clerk. |
| Jessica | Shylock's daughter, who elopes with Lorenzo and takes her father's money. |
| Gratiano | Bassanio's talkative friend, the loudest voice against Shylock in court. |
| Tubal | Shylock's fellow Jew, who brings him news of Jessica and of Antonio's losses. |
| Launcelet Gobbo | The clown, Shylock's servant, who leaves him for Bassanio. |
| The Duke of Venice | Presides over the trial. |
The vocabulary you need before Act I
Bond. A written agreement under seal by which one person becomes liable to another. In this play it is a document sealed before a notary, a public officer who authenticates documents, and the parties call it a "single bond".
Ducat. A gold coin of Venice. The loan is three thousand of them, and the sum matters only in that it is large enough that Antonio cannot pay it in cash.
The Merchant of Venice: the Play, and Why a Law Course Sets It
Usance and usury. Usance is the lending of money at interest. Usury today means excessive interest, but in the play it means interest of any kind, which Antonio treats as sinful and Shylock treats as his trade.
Forfeiture. What a person loses when a condition is broken. Here the forfeit is a pound of Antonio's flesh.
Penalty. A sum or a thing promised on breach that is out of all proportion to the actual loss. The pound of flesh is a penalty, and that is the legal heart of the play.
Argosy. A large merchant ship.
Alien. A person who is not a citizen. Venice has a separate law for aliens, and in Act IV it decides the case.
Why this play is on a law syllabus, in one paragraph you could write out
Because it is the clearest story in English about the gap between the letter of an agreement and justice. Shylock's bond is valid. He gave value, the terms were plain, Antonio read them and sealed willingly, and the day passed without payment. Every rule of contract says he should get his remedy. What the court does instead is to hold him to his own words so exactly that the remedy becomes impossible, and then to turn a criminal statute on him. A law student who can explain why that is satisfying and troubling at the same time has understood both the play and something about law.
What beginners get wrong
They call it a tragedy. It is a comedy, and the trial is its crisis, not its ending.
They think Shylock loses because he is wrong in law. He is not wrong in law. He loses on the construction of his own document and then on a statute about aliens. Saying he had no case is the commonest error in answers on this text.
They forget the fifth act. Two thirds of candidates write as though the play ends at the trial. It does not, and questions are set on the rings.
They treat Portia as a real lawyer. She is not admitted to any bar. She appears on a letter of introduction from a doctor of laws named Bellario, in disguise, and the play never suggests this is regular.
A worked answer
Question. "In two sentences, say what The Merchant of Venice is about."
A weak answer. It is a play by Shakespeare about a Jewish moneylender who is very cruel and is punished at the end by a clever lady.
Why it is weak. It gives no plot, no legal content, and a judgment the play does not support. Nothing in it could not have been written by somebody who had read the back cover.
The Merchant of Venice: the Play, and Why a Law Course Sets It
A strong answer. The Merchant of Venice is a comedy in which the merchant Antonio borrows three thousand ducats from the moneylender Shylock for his friend Bassanio, on a bond forfeiting a pound of Antonio's flesh if the money is not repaid on the day, and, the ships being lost, Shylock sues in the ducal court for the forfeiture. The suit is defeated by Portia, disguised as a doctor of laws, who upholds the bond and then holds Shylock to its exact words, that it grants flesh and no blood, before invoking a Venetian statute against aliens who seek a citizen's life.
What the strong answer does. It names the parties, the sum, the term, the forfeit, the court, and the two grounds of decision, in the order they happen. Everything in it can be checked against the text.
Quick revision
A comedy by Shakespeare, written about 1596 to 1597, first printed 1600.
Two plots joined by three thousand ducats: the bond plot in Venice, the casket plot in Belmont.
Five acts, twenty scenes. The trial is Act IV Scene i and is the longest scene in the play.
Sources: Il Pecorone for the bond, the Gesta Romanorum for the caskets.
Key words: bond, ducat, usance, forfeiture, penalty, alien, argosy.
The legal question of the play: what a court should do with an agreement that is valid and monstrous.
Test yourself
1. In one sentence, what is the bond plot? Antonio borrows three thousand ducats from Shylock for three months on behalf of Bassanio, on condition that if the money is not repaid on the day Shylock may take a pound of Antonio's flesh, and when Antonio's ships are reported lost Shylock sues for the forfeiture.
2. Why can a rich merchant not raise three thousand ducats? Because his wealth is in cargo at sea and not in cash. He says so in Act I Scene i, and it is what makes the loan necessary.
3. What is the difference between usury as the play uses the word and usury today? In the play it means lending at interest at all. Today it means charging interest that is excessive or unlawful.
4. Name the two source stories. Il Pecorone by Ser Giovanni Fiorentino for the flesh bond, and the Gesta Romanorum for the three caskets.
5. Why does the play insist that the Duke cannot simply cancel the bond? Because Venice lives on foreign trade, and traders will not come to a city whose courts refuse to enforce agreements. The play makes commercial certainty the reason the unjust bond has to be taken seriously.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.