10 June 1992 Granville's Jew of Venice (1701): A Close Reading of Shakespeare's Merchant Ben Ross Schneider, Jr. In a recent essay in which Catherine Craft examines George Granville's adaptation of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, called The Jew of Venice, she decides that Granville's goal was to produce a more purely comic play than the original, one more suited to his own age. He achieved this end [she continues] by developing the light, happy plot that remained once he had stripped Shakespeare's [Merchant] of all its dark colorings. Where Shakespeare had established a rivalry between Antonio and Portia over Bassanio, showing tensions arising between friendship and love, Granville portrayed friendship and love working together for the mutual well-being of all. Where Shakespeare introduced dark elements into his play by examining the strife between Christians and Jews which surrounded the Venetian friends and lovers, Granville presented a comic villain to forward his plot. (40) Ms. Craft assumes that the "dark colorings" removed by Granville are a feature of the original. But they were not observed in it until the latter end of the last century, when major actors began to play Shylock, and critics did not reach a consensus on their presence until the last decade.(1) Still, it does not occur to Ms. Craft that modern readers might be the revisionists, not Granville, and that The Jew of Venice might be closer to Shakespeare's Merchant than the play we reconstruct on the stage and in our minds today. What if we reverse Ms. Craft's thesis and investigate the proposition that Granville's plot (perhaps better described as "moral and uplifting" than "light and happy") is an accurate reading of the original's ideological substance, after all? Granville lived and wrote 300 years closer to The Merchant (1598) than we do, closer than we live to A Doll's House (1879), and 300 years closer to Shakespeare's ethical universe. Granville's play is coming from Shakespeare, but it is not by any means going toward us, for between us and Shakespeare lie the rise of capitalism, and the French, Romantic, and industrial revolutions. We know that capitalism has brought along with it a capitalist ideology--democracy, individualism, free enterprise---, but we seem not to be aware that we are, as the anthropologists would say, "culture-bound" by this ideology, however much we may think we oppose it. Our cultural blinders warp, nay invert, our reading of Shakespeare, especially our reading of the play he wrote about this very pre-capitalist ideology. Before The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism, what kind of an "ethic" was there? Why not let Marx be our guide? The Bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his 'natural superi- ors,' and left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous cash payment. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstacies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, it has set up that single unconscionable freedom--Free Trade. (Manifesto 12-13) Before capitalism, then, "patriarchal . . . relations" and "motley feudal ties" bound men together. And, since the cash nexus is impersonal, callous, icy, calculating and selfish, these relations and ties must have been, at least by comparison, personal, kind, warm, and unselfish. Suffice it to say that the pre-protestant ethic was something altogether different from the post-. Are we not perhaps looking for something on the order of ethic described by Marcel Mauss in his anthropological classic, The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies? Under this ethical system people are bound to each other not by legal contracts but by gifts and services ("benefits") voluntarily provided and voluntarily reciprocated. The vestiges of this primitive system apparently persistin Europe wherever Calvinism is weak, wherever, to quote Weber, "the opportunity of earning more is less attractive than the opportunity of working less" (60). Its last bastion is the landed aristocracy, whose influence on manners in general is always powerful. That's why, I suppose, we still recognize gift economics in the realm of social obligation. But it originates in the primeval forest, where hunters and gatherers recognized no private property, where every good thing was to be shared by all. The Romans apparently remembered and admired this pre-agricultural age, as Seneca testifies on quoting Virgil's Georgics: No ploughman tilled the soil, nor was it right To portion off or bound one's property. Men shared their gains, and earth more freely gave Her riches to her sons who sought them not. What race of men [comments Seneca] was ever more blest than that race? They enjoyed all nature in partnership. Nature sufficed for them . . . and this her gift consisted of the assured possession by each man of the common resources. (Epistles [Ep.] 2.423-4) In such tribal societies arose the conventions of gift exchange, a species of social glue consisting of mutual feelings of gratitude and obligation (see Mauss, Sahlins, Hyde). Reinforced by Christianity and chivalry, the ethics of gift exchange were further strengthened during the Renaissance by study of the classical moralists. The original Merchant alerts us to their presence in its pages when Bassanio tells Portia that Antonio is "one in whom/The ancient Roman honor more appears/Than any that draws breath in Italy" (Merchant of Venice [MV] 3.2.294-6).(2) Apparently the principal conduits of classical moral thought in Shakespeare's time were Cicero's De Officiis and Seneca's Essays and Epistles, especially his De Beneficiis, a comprehensive philosophical investigation of every possible ramification of gift exchange (translated into English in 1578). Seneca specialized in theoretical exposition and Ciero in practical application. "In the Renaissance no Latin author was more highly esteemed than Seneca," said T. S. Eliot (52). And every schoolboy simultaneously learned his Latin and his manners by means of Cicero's De Officiis. Perhaps, then, the fastest way for us to become acquainted with pre-capitalist ethics as understood in Shakespeare's time is to read these works.(3) We can read Granville's thoughts as he reads Shakespeare's Merchant because we know that he derives his concept of drama from Aristotle's Poetics. By the time he wrote his Jew of Venice (1701), Aristotle and Horace dictated the terms on which English drama was staged and criticized, even though in practice it was well-nigh ungovernable. The recipe for making an acceptable adaptation of a Shakespeare play had been fairly well established. Shakespeare, it was agreed, was a great "Natural" genius: his characters were true to life; no one could delineate and arouse the passions as well as he. "He was the man who, of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul" (Dryden 79). But thanks to his having lived in a barbarous age, his diction was obscure and unpolished, his narrative undisciplined, and his morality indistinct.(4) Must his plays then lapse into oblivion? By no means, for "if Shake- speare were stripped of all the bombasts of his passions, and dressed in the most vulgar [ordinary] words, we should find the beauties of his thoughts remaining; if his embroideries were burnt down, there would still be silver at the bottom of the melting pot" (Dryden 227). To get at the silver while maintaining Horatian-Aristotelian standards of purity, the neo-classical adapter would "burn down" the embroideries. His principal tool was Aristotle's principle of probability. A fiction must strive to be an imitation of Nature. But not Nature "as is," undigest- ed, like history. Fiction, according to Aristotle's Restoration expositors, "is more general and abstracted, is led more by the philosophy, the reason and Nature of things, than history, which only records things higglety- pigglety, right or wrong, as they happen" (Rymer 154). Fiction selects the universal, not the accidental; it prefers an probable impossibility to an improbable possibility. The probability that one performance on one stage could convincingly represent a span of time much longer than the length of the performance, or more than one place, or more than one action seemed small to the critical establishment, so they laid down the three unities of time, place and action--"Those rules of old discovered, not devised,/. . . Nature still, but Nature methodized," as Pope said in his Essay on Criticism (ll. 88-9). From this standpoint The Merchant was hopeless. It wandered all over Venice, sailed (for days?) to Belmont, distracted us with that irrelevant subplot of Launcelot and his father, and expected us to believe that fairy tale of the caskets and that unlikely collateral of the pound of flesh. In his "Advertisement to the Reader," Granville felt he had to apologize for bringing it to public notice: The Foundation of the following Comedy being liable to some Objections, it may be wondered that any one should make Choice of it to bestow so much labor upon: But the judicious Reader will observe so many Manly and Moral Graces in the Characters and Sentiments that he may excuse the Story for the Sake of the Ornamental Parts. (The Jew of Venice [JV] 347) It was to get at these "Manly and Moral Graces", then, that Granville revised The Merchant of Venice. In the process, working from the other side of the ethical divide that separates us from Shakespeare, Granville gives us no less than a virtual point by point refutation of the standard modern/postmodern interpretation of Shakespeare's Merchant: Male bonding. A few years ago it was often suggested that Antonio and Bassanio were homo-erotically involved,(5) but now that this sexual preference no longer carries a stigma, they are accused simply of male bonding in the interests of female subjection.(6) Apparently the "Manly and Moral Graces" that so impressed Granville are not visible to us. Dryden throws light on this subject in his critical estimate of Shakespeare. Comparing him to Fletcher, he says, Shakespeare's drama excelled in "the more manly passions; Fletcher's [in] the softer [ones]. Shakespeare writ better betwixt man and man; Fletcher, betwixt man and woman: consequently the one describ'd friendship better; the other love. . . . Friendship is both a virtue and a Passion, essentially; love is a passion only in its nature and is not a virtue but by accident: good nature makes Friendship; but effeminacy Love." (227-8) Expanding Granville's hint by Dryden's commentary, one deduces that the very feature of The Merchant that bothers us today made it most attractive in Granville's time. Writing a few years after The Jew of Venice came on stage, Nicholas Rowe, in his preface to the works of Shakespeare, gives confirmation of this hypothesis: The play itself, take it all together, seems to me one of the most finished of any of Shakespeare's. The tale indeed, in that part relat- ing to the caskets and the extravagant and unusual bond given by Antonio is a little too much removed beyond the Rules of Probability. But taking that fact for granted, we must allow it to be very beautifully written. There is something in the friendship of Antonio to Bassanio very great, generous and tender. (29) If, for Augustans, friendship was a major virtue and not a psychopathic condition or a politically incorrect attitude that may account for the fact that The Merchant of Venice was the most popular Shakespearean comedy of the 18th century (if we exclude The Merry Wives as a farce).(7) At any rate Granville's adaptive changes all serve to heighten the play's concentration on friendship. He dispenses with Launcelot and his father. He compresses the Jessica/Shylock and Jessica/Lorenzo segments into one contiguous block, ending with Jessica's elopement. He gets rid of Shylock's friend Tubal and Antonio's friends Solanio and Salerio, moving Shylock's lines spoken to Tubal to the jail scene, and assigning to Gratiano whatever lines of Solanio and Salerio were useful to the new configuration. Since these two were no longer available to hear it, Shylock spoke his great "Hath not a Jew eyes" speech to Antonio, in that same jail scene. He dropped the first two casket scenes--the stories of Arragon and Morocco were too distracting--but had Bassanio recite the significant parts of their deliber- ations as he rejected the gold and silver caskets in preparation for choosing the lead one. Having dispensed with Shakespeare's excursions and diversions, Granville now had a script that never wandered from the path of friendship. He now had room to correct what he thought were two egregious errors in the causality of the original by dramatizing the dinner at Bassanio's--prepared for but not shown--and re-instating the masque--prepared for but canceled on the poor excuse of a fair wind for Belmont. Adding the scene of the masque not only repaired a broken action, it gave Granville a chance to write on the sky, in explicit terms, what he thought to be the play's moral message. The guests made toasts, and the toasts were messages, and orchestral fanfares blared out in approval of each: [Toast #1] Antonio. This to immortal friendship; fill it up---- Be thou to me, and I to my Bassanio, Like Venice and her Adriatic Bride, Forever linked in love. Bassanio. Thou join'st us well: And rightly hast compared; Like Venice on a rock, my friendship stands Constant and fixed; but 'tis a barren spot; Whilst like the liberal Adriatic, thou With plenty bath'st my shores---- My fortunes are the bounty of my friend. Antonio. My friend's the noblest bounty of my fortune. Sound every instrument of music there, To our immortal friendship. [All drink. Loud music. [Toast #2] Bassanio. Let love be next, and to love's queen; my charming Por- tia, Fill; till the rosy brim reflects her lips; Then kiss the symbol round: Oh, in this lottery of love; where chance Not choice presides: give, give, ye powers, the lot, Where she herself would place it: crown her wish, Though ruin and perdition catch Bassanio: Let me be wretched, but let her be blest. [Drink and music again. [Toast #3] Gratiano. Mine's a short health: Here's to the sex in general; To woman; be she black, brown, or fair; Plump, slender, tall, or middle-statured---- Let it be woman; and 'tis all I ask. [Drink again. Music as before. [Toast #4] Shylock. I have a mistress that outshines 'em all----- Commanding yours----and yours though the whole sex: O may her charms increase and multiply; My money is my mistress! Here's to Interest upon interest. (JV 2.2.1-31) Friendship and Love are here starkly arrayed against Lust and Greed. We are given notice that Shylock operates as the absolute moral antithesis of the two friends, being as cold and calculating as they are warm and generous. Likewise, Gratiano's degrading attitude to "the sex" serves as the antithesis of Bassanio's love for Portia as a person. Friendship includes love, but love, as Dryden suggests, may or may not include friendship--more about this later. Because we persist in assuming that Shylock is morally equal to Antonio and his companions, we fail to grasp what was once a huge categorical difference between him and them. For them no value resides in money; all value ultimately resides in friendship. There is no common ground. Perhaps aware of the proliferation of Shylocks in his own time, and in order to make sure his audience doesn't miss the point, Granville, catching them by the lapels the first time they see the friends together, rewrites much of the expository scene in which Bassanio tells about his mission to Belmont and his need for funds. Here, what Shakespeare shows by means of the great regard each demonstrates for the other, Granville tells by having Antonio preach a sermon. Thus the original Antonio's simple avowal that "My purse, my person, my extremest means/Lie all unlocked to your occasions" (MV 1.1.138-9) acquires the following preface: My friend can owe me nothing; we are one, The treasures I possess, are but in trust, For him I love. Speak freely your demand. (JV 1.1.42-44) Here Granville is not just assuring us that Antonio is a friend, but that he is a friend in the highest classical sense of the word, for the passage overtly stipulates three widely-held maxims: 1) that "friends have all things in common," a saying reiterated by of Aristotle, Cicero, and Seneca (Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics [Eth.] 8.9.1, Off. 1.51, Seneca Essays [Ess.] 3.483); that there is no such thing as private property--"owners" are merely trustees (Off. 1.21, 22, Ess. 3.367., Ep. 3.91); and 3) that friends are two persons with one soul (Cicero De Amicitia [Am.] 81; Off. 1.56, Eth. 8.1.6, 9.4.5, Montaigne 1.224). Granville repeats the word "friend" five times in this crucial early scene. Shakespeare got through it without using the word once, though he made the relationship it signifies abundantly clear to anyone attuned to its music. For not only does Shakespeare's play center on friendship, but friendship on the same classical model as that of Granville. Antonio's impatience with Bassanio's long grant proposal in act 1 certainly refers to the same authorities that Granville virtually para- phrases. And his one stipulation, on granting the loan--"if it stand . . . within the eye of honor"--may also be found in Cicero, who decreed that "an upright man will never for a friend's sake do anything in violation of . . . his sacred honour" (Am. 44, Off. 3.43; cf.Seneca Ess. 2.151, 3.77, 221-3). Furthermore Antonio's antipathy to Shylock just as certainly derives from the premise that friends have all things in common. If we are paying attention in act 1 when Antonio, reproached for spitting on Shylock, offers to spit on him again, we will get the distinct impression that he spits on Shylock on principle, and that the principle is friendship. In terms of the way friends do business, moneylending is for him an obscenity. Therefore I am as like to call thee [dog] again, And spit on thee again, to spurn thee too. If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not As to thy friends--for when did friendship take A breed for barren metal of his friend?-- But lend it rather to thine enemy, Who if he break, thou mayst with better face Exact the penalty. (MV 1.3.130-7) If friends have all things in common, then Shylock is an enemy. Cato thought that moneylending was as bad as murder (Off. 2.89). It follows that we do have base treachery when Shylock now pretends to lend the money as a friendly act, and Antonio in a flood of gratitude believes him (MV 1.3.137-178). Perhaps Shylock proposed it that way because he knew it was an offer his enemy couldn't refuse. This whole episode can be understood only in terms of the protocols of friendship. On this basis I argue that the prejudice against Shylock in both original and adaptation is ethic, not ethnic. The suspicion that constant companions of the same sex who continually show signs of affection may well be homo-erotically involved never appears to have crossed Granville's mind. For him, the friends' regard for each other was by no means problematic, and instead of suppressing the (for us) embar- rassing side of male-to-male affection, he turns up the volume on it. For its magnitude was one of its main virtues. When Bassanio leaves Venice to go to Belmont for a week or two, Granville's account of the parting reminds one of Romeo and Juliet's "sweet sorrow." "One more embrace," says Bassanio: "To those who know not friend- ship/This may appear unmanly tenderness;/But 'tis the frailty of the bravest minds" (JV 2.2.90-3). Obviously we are dealing with the "manly graces" which attracted Granville to the play in the first place; and also that "something in the friendship of Antonio to Bassanio very great, generous and tender" (29) for which Rowe so much admired the play. The original play is less obtrusive in describing the friends' parting but the "tenderness" is there, just the same. Salerio reports: [Antonio's] eye being big with tears, Turning his face, he put his hand behind him, And with affection wondrous sensible He wrung Bassanio's hand, and so they parted. Solanio. I think he only loves the world for him. (MV 2.8.46-50) The last act of The Merchant, as we shall see, constitutes a crescendo on the theme of friendship. Shylock more sinned against than sinning Apparently Granville couldn't see the evidence, so plain to us, that Shakespeare invites us to sympathize with Shylock.(8) Certainly he himself is not sympathetic, as he makes plain in the toasts at Bassanio's banquet. And while he heaps praise on friendship for being "plain,/Artless, familiar, confident and free" (JV 1.1.68-9), he loads censure on Shylock for his deceit and hypocrisy. As if it were not bad enough that usury is perfectly inimical to friendship, Shylock, as we have observed, feigns friendship to trap Antonio. To reinforce Shylock's perfidy, Granville adds material that shows him posing as a friend at Bassanio's banquet and then joining the group at the boat-landing to take part in his send-off to Belmont. Here are the lines Granville adds for the occasion: Bassanio. Shylock, thy hand: be gentle to my friend, Fear not the bond, it shall be justly paid, We soon shall meet again, Always, I hope, good friends. Oh my Antonio! 'tis hard, tho' for a moment, To lose the sight of what we love. Shylock. These two Christian fools put me in mind Of my money: just so loath am I to part with that. (JV 2.2.99-106) Of all forms of injustice, none is more flagrant than that of the hypocrite who, at the very moment when he is most false, makes it his business to appear virtuous. (Cicero: Off. 1.41) The bait of friendship, Antonio's reversal of attitude toward Shylock ("Hie thee, gentle Jew" [MV 1.3.177]), his falling into the trap of the merry bond- -are all there in the original. Granville has not invented the treacherous Shylock; he has merely given it more emphasis. But the strongest evidence that Granville sees no reason to sympathize with the villain is that despite his drastic cuts and his rage for order, he lets stand the very material that nowadays calls forth our sympathy--the "Can a dog lend money?" and "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speeches. He apparently found them no threat to his interpretation. Perhaps he sees them simply as poor excuses for villainy, just as we do the similar pleas for sympathy of Richard III and Iago. Of course, the "Hath not a Jew eyes" speech, even in the original, turns out to be an apology for revenge instead of a sermon against prejudice, in which Shylock simply maintains that to revenge is human, that even Christians, despite their vaunted "humility," indulge in it. But the fact that other people commit crimes is no excuse for doing them. And Granville makes this very point in a prominent scene-closing quatrain by Gratiano: Jew, Turk and Christian differ but in creed; In ways of wickedness, they'r all agreed; None upward clears the road. They part and cavil, But all jog on----unerring, to the devil. (JV 2.1.83-86) Granville presents Shylock's pleas for sympathy as shallow rational- izations for evil deeds. Bassanio a fortune-hunter Bassanio's reckless expenditure is a problem for us; his apparent irresponsible hedonism leads us to question his motives for seeking Portia's hand: he's as much motivated by money as Shylock.(9) Again, Granville maximizes the the material that now suggests moral turpitude. Broaching his quest to Antonio, Granville has him introduce Portia somewhat crassly as "im- mensely rich" (JV 1.1.75), whereas Shakespeare's Bassanio had more delicately vouchsafed that she was "richly left" (MV 1.1.161). Apparently Granville found no problem in the fact that Portia was rich and Bassanio poor. Poor heroes married rich heiresses every day in Restoration plays without having stigmas attached to them. Perhaps we should look at the situation from the heiress's point of view. Rich fops abound, but money is not her problem. What she needs is a decent husband. And Bassanio is such a man. In Granville's version, Bassanio's extravagance, far from being prob- lematic, is grounds for true admiration. Antonio, no doubt his biggest creditor, is by no means dismayed at his expenditure. Awestruck by the heroic scale of his banquet and masque, he eulogizes his friend: With such an air of true magnificence My noble minded brother treats his friends: As hardly has been known to Italy Since Pompey and Lucullus entertained: To frame thy fortune ample as thy mind, New worlds should be created. (JV 2.2.57-62) Granville is reminding us here that Bassanio is what Aristotle calls a "Great Soul," one who has no attachment to worldly goods, who is fond of conferring benefits, for whom spending money is an art ("Magnificence"), and who spends "gladly and lavishly, since nice calculation is shabby" (Eth. 4.2.5, 8; 4.3.18, 24). Cicero declares that "There is nothing more honourable and noble than to be indifferent to money" (Off. 1.68). Shakespeare shows us that same Great Soul without putting a label on him. He introduces Bassanio as one who has "disabled [his] estate/By something showing a more swelling port/Than [his] faint means would grant continuance" (MV 1.1.123-5). In dire financial straits, he expensively feasts his friends and plans to entertain them with a masque. He undertakes to "hold a rival" place with Portia's other suitors, both princes, and he therefore brings "gifts of rich value" to Belmont (MV 1.1.174; 2.9.91). His extravagant spending shows us that Bassanio certainly is "indifferent to money." If, in his courtship, he had suppressed the fact that he was bankrupt, we could suspect him of ulterior motives, but Bassanio "freely" told Portia, on his first visit to Belmont, that all the wealth he had "ran in [his] veins," that his "state was nothing" (MV 3.2.254, 259). Obviously money made no difference to Portia, either. Money aside, Shakespeare continually reminds us of Bassanio's intrinsic merit. Some thirty times he refers to him as "Lord Bassanio," "my lord," "your lordship," "your worship," and "your honor." Moreover, he is designat- ed "a scholar and a soldier," i.e., he's polished and brave. And he is well- connected, too, for he first came to Belmont "in the company of the Marquis of Montferrat" (MV 1.2.113-14). The Marquisate of Montferrat belonged to the illustrious princely house of Gonzaga.(10) Three Gonzagas participated in the dialogue of Castiglione's Courtier, The Lady Elizabeth Gonzaga in the chair (242). Thus Nerissa can say without reservation, "He, of all men that ever my foolish eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady" (MV 1.2.117-18). On the husband question Cicero quotes Themistocles' wishes for his daughter: "For my part, I prefer a man without money to money without a man" (Off. 2.71). Portia has plenty of money; what she needs is a man. If she still has doubts about his motives, her father's test will remove them, for it is designed expressly to filter out fortune-hunters. By choosing the right casket, Bassanio settles the question of whether or not his motives are mercenary. The ring as a device for excluding Antonio Granville obviously doesn't see the conflict that so troubles us today between Portia's marriage and her husband's friendship. In his last act friendship conquers all, assimilates love, and becomes the chief guarantor of mortal happiness. The social mechanism by which these three friends, as well as all the other people at Belmont, are knit together as one is Gratitude, which for Granville is a law of nature to illustrate which is the play's reason for being. He harps on this principle at every opportunity. Thus when Portia, upon Bassanio's victory over the caskets, gives herself and everything she has to Bassanio, he immediately gives it all back, in a flood of gratitude: My mistress, and my queen: As absolute as ever shall you reign. Not as the lord but vassal of your charms, Not as conqueror but acquisition, Not one to lessen but enlarge your power, No more but this, the creature of your pleasure: As such receive the passionate Bassanio. (JV 3.1.178-83) This passage is not sheer invention, but builds on a little-noticed speech by the original Bassanio, when, on reading the piece of paper from the lead casket that gives him the right to marry Portia, he refuses to collect the "[promissory] note" until it is "confirm'd, sign'd, and ratified by you" (MV 3.2.139-148). In effect he gives her back to herself, retracts his entitle- ment, and puts himself at her mercy. Granville copies what we have come to think of as the "betrayal scene," where Bassanio gives his engagement ring to "Balthasar," almost word for word. Back in Belmont, he again magnifies the problem. Where Shakespeare's scene was pure comedy (unless we emphasize those "dark colorings" of jealous wife and excessive male bonding), Granville's reaches near tragedy. He has already set us up for a standard Restoration conflict between Love and Honor. When, after choosing the right casket, Bassanio hears the news of Antonio's ruin, he immediately splits in two: shall he desert his wife and run to his friend, or shall he desert his friend and stick to his wife? Love dictates wife; Honor dictates friend. There is no way out. Don't be silly, says Portia: "Honor calls/And Love must wait. Honor, that still delights/To tyrannize o'er Love." She then escorts him to the door and commands him to go. Since he has just made her his "Queen," he must obey (JV 3.1.285-298). Here again he spells out what was implied by the action of the original, where Portia anticipates her husband's need to go to his friend and grants him permission to leave Belmont for Venice before he asks it: "O love! dispatch all business and be gone" (MV 3.2.323). Some of this "business" might have been another long-winded grant proposal like that in act 1. But Portia has dispensed with it in advance, as Bassanio recognizes in his reply: "Since I have your good leave to go away, / I will make haste" (MV 3.2.324-5) The point is that as her dedicated servant, he was not free to go, and he knew it. Granville's Love/Honor dilemma reaches its highest intensity in the last act, when the husbands discover that their wives have the very rings that they had given the "lawyer" and his "clerk," and the wives maintain that they got them by sleeping with these very persons. In Granville's text, the husbands actually believe the women. Bassanio is enraged, and turns on Antonio for making him give up Portia's ring. Now Love (wife) dominates Honor (friend). Heroic Antonio responds (instantly) by offering his life again: "Take revenge and kill me." Bassanio can't do that: stalemate (JV 5.1.157-201). It is time to reveal the trick. Friendship and love may now coexist. Granville's moral, stated baldly at the end of the play, integrates the marriage and friendship plots (and the Shylock plot by contrast) on the theme of gratitude: Portia. My Lord [Bassanio]: by these small services to you And to your friends, I hope I may secure Your love; which, built upon mere fancy, Had else been subjected to alteration. With age and use the rose grows sick and faint, Thus mixed with friendly sweets, secures its scent. Bassanio. The sweets of love shall here forever blow: I needs must love, remembering what I owe. Love, like a meteor, shows a short-lived blaze, Or treads through various skies, a wandering maze; Begot by fancy, and by fancy led, Here in a moment, in a moment fled: But fixt by obligations, it will last; For gratitude's the charm that binds it fast. [Exeunt omnes. The notion that gratitude is a sort of social law of gravity certainly derives from Stoic precepts. According to Cicero, [A] strong bond of fellowship is effected by mutual interchange of kind services; and as long as these kindnesses are mutual and acceptable, those between whom they are interchanged are united by the ties of an enduring intimacy. (Off. 1.56) For Seneca the custom of reciprocal giving is nothing less than "a stone arch, which would collapse if the stones did not mutually support each other, and which is upheld in this very way" (Ep. 3.91). And for Shakespeare, too. But we, being unable to read the signposts of gratitude in The Merchant of Venice, are unable to follow his directions. In particular, we can't figure out how to attach the last act to the rest of the play. It seems to be a gratuitous addendum, or, more recently, an appendix on Portia vs. male bonding. But once we know what to look for, everything falls into place. Why did Portia decide to rescue Antonio in the first place? A question rarely asked. She tells us plainly, but since her reasons don't strike a modern chord, they go right past us. Just at the point when Bassanio solves the riddle of the caskets and he and Portia are getting ready to live happily ever after, comes the bad news that Shylock means to collect his pound of flesh from Antonio and kill him in the process. She sends him off to succor his friend. Afterwards Lorenzo remarks on her great generosity in so cheerfully letting go her betrothed. It wasn't hard, she said, because I never did repent for doing good, Nor shall not now: for in companions That do converse and waste the time together, Whose souls do bear an egall yoke of love, There must be needs a like proportion Of lineaments, of manners, and of spirit; Which makes me think that this Antonio, Being the bosom lover of my lord, Must needs be like my lord. If it be so, How little is the cost I have bestowed In purchasing the semblance of my soul, From out the state of hellish cruelty. This comes too near the praising of myself, Therefore no more of it. (MV 3.4.10-23) We are given no other reason for her expedition to Venice. What she tells us here is that her future husband's friend is as much her friend as he is Bassanio's--the "semblance of [her] soul" to be exact--and if she knows how to rescue him, she ought to do it. Having some understanding of Renaissance attitudes to Love and Friendship, we may now see a deeper reason for the rescue. Just as, according to Dryden,/Fletcher is weaker than Shakespeare so is Love weaker than Friendship (see above p.????? {typesetter please insert correct cross-reference to comment on Fletcher in section on Male Bonding}) During the trial Bassanio offered his life to save his friend from Shylock's knife, and then, much to our consternation, offered his wife as an alternative. The classical exemplars of friendship had no problem with sacrificing wives or sweethearts on the altar of friendship. In the tale of Titus and Gysippus, Gysippus gives his betrothed to Titus, who later has an opportunity to offer his life in return. And of course, in Shakespeare's own Two Gentlemen of Verona (1594) one friend offered his beloved to the other on demand. Montaigne would kill his daughter if his friend asked him to (Elyot (2.11,12); 2 Gentlemen, 5.4.83; Montaigne (63)). As Granville reminds us in his concluding moral statement, just cited, Love, being a passion, comes and goes; Friendship, being an eternal bond between souls, a moral entity, is permanent. Perhaps that's why Elizabethan marriage handbooks recommended friendship as the best basis for a satisfactory relationship between husband and wife (Bean). Perhaps Portia rescues Antonio because she knows it will bind Bassanio to her forever as a friend, as well as a husband. Now we see, with Granville's help, that the last act is not Portia's own one-act, but an apotheosis of friendship. The true climax of the play is not, after all, the defeat of Shylock but the scene just after it, when Bassanio in his turn passes a supreme test of friendship. Here Balthasar chooses Bassanio's wedding ring as a reward for saving Antonio from Shylock, Bassanio remonstrates--it is his pledge of fidelity to his wife--, but Antonio, having a huge debt of gratitude to Balthasar, commands My lord Bassanio, let him have the ring; Let his deservings, and my love withal, Be valued 'gainst your wife's commandment. (MV 4.1.320-22) Such a moment, rolling the main issue of the drama into a ball and tossing it in the air to see if it will be caught, also occurs when Beatrice says to Benedict, "Kill Claudio" (Much Ado 4.1.289). By putting his request in the form of a command, Antonio actually does Bassanio a favor, effectively letting him "off the hook" for betraying his wife. For, commanded thus, Bassanio has no more choice in the matter than he would about whether to obey the force of gravity after stepping out of a window. "A singular and principall friendship dissolveth all other duties, and freeth all other obligations" (Montaigne 1.226). Antonio would have given his life for Bassanio. Bassanio's debt of gratitude is maximum. When, instantly, with no trace of reluctance, Bassanio gives up the ring at his friend's request, we gasp. But the very speed with which he betrays his oath to Portia is the main point of the play. The Merchant has actually been building for this moment ever since Antonio protested against Bassanio's grant proposal in act 1. Since his friendship automatically entails the grant, he only wants to know "How much." "Why" is irrelevant. For the classical moralists, a "hesitant friend" is a contradiction in terms. "Righteousness," says Cicero, "shines with a brilliance of its own, but doubt is a sign we are thinking of a possible wrong." "Do for friends [whatever] is honourable . . . without even waiting to be asked; let zeal be ever present, but hesitation absent." "There is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers." "Give . . . quickly, cheerfully, and without hesitation" (Off. 1.30; Am. 44; Seneca Morals 16). Throughout the seven books of De Beneficiis Seneca harps on one string: it's the attitude that counts: not the thing given or received. Because for two steps Lancelot hesitated to get into a peasant cart, weighing his pride against his eagerness to join Guenevere, she rejected his love, and rightly so. For, [says Seneca] since . . . the chief pleasure of [a benefit] comes from the intention of the bestower, he who by his very hesitation has shown that he made his bestowal unwillingly has not 'given' (50). He has simply been unable to think of a reason not to. As I have said, Shakespeare shows his characters' eagerness to give, instead of telling us about it. Counting Antonio's unhesitating loan to Bassanio with which the play begins, (11) and Portia's release of Bassanio to go in aid of Antonio before he asks it, we witness eight other instantaneous grants in preparation for Bassanio's splendid gift of Portia's ring. In act 2 Bassanio gives Launcelot a job instantly, without an interview, and without calculating whether he can afford another servant, which he can't. Bassanio. What would you? Launcelot. Serve you, sir. Old Gobbo. That is the very defect of the matter, sir. Bassanio. I know you well; thou hast obtained thy suit. (MV 2.2.141-144) A moment later request and grant occupy one line: Gratiano. I have a suit to you. Bassanio. You have obtained it. (MV 2.2.177) (12) A mere hint is enough for Lorenzo: Gratiano. Was not that letter from fair Jessica? Lorenzo. I must needs tell thee all. (MV 2.4.28-9) And he proceeds to do so. Gratiano asks for Nerissa's hand in marriage: Bassanio. And do you, Gratiano, mean good faith? [Are you serious, for once?] Gratiano. Yes, faith, my Lord. Bassanio. Our feast shall be much honored in your marriage (MV 3.2.210-212). On receiving the news that Bassanio's friend must forfeit a pound of flesh: Portia. What sum owes he the Jew? Bassanio. For me, three thousand ducats. Portia. Pay him six thousand and deface the bond. Double six thousand and treble that. (MV 3.2.297-300) An equally fast response occurs when the Duke's pardons Shylock his life also "before [he asks] it" (MV 4.1.369). Note also the speed with which Antonio accepts Shylock's flesh bond, taking it as an offer of friendship: Shylock. To buy his favor, I extend this friendship. If he will take it, so, if not, adieu; And for my love I pray you wrong me not. Antonio. Yes, Shylock, I will seal unto this bond. (MV 1.3.168-171) In contrast to these instant decisions, Shylock, always the antithesis, "bethinks" himself (MV 1.3.30) for 151 lines, one-third of act 1, before making up his mind to grant a loan to Antonio. He was indeed, as Cicero could have told us, "thinking of a possible wrong." Thus the main conflict of Shakespeare's Merchant--that between Antonio and Shylock and what they represent, prepares us for the play's grand moment of truth, when Antonio says, "Let him have the ring," and Bassanio instantly complies. The same interlocking web of gratitude knits the main characters together in both The Merchant and The Jew, though, again, Shakespeare does not advertize the fact. Antonio stakes his life for Bassanio. Bassanio owes Antonio not just three thousand ducats but his own life in return for Antonio's risking his. Bassanio owes his fortune to Antonio, who enabled him to court Portia. Portia owes her husband to Antonio, the enabler. She pays him back by saving his life at the trial. Now Antonio owes his life to the "lawyer" who saved it. Therefore, he commands Bassanio to give up the ring. Now Antonio owes Bassanio for sacrificing the ring (Portia). Portia pays her debt to Antonio by forgiving him. She does this by giving him the honor of returning the ring to Bassanio. He reciprocates the favor by promising to make sure that it stays on his friend's finger (thus giving her his friend). And when he puts the ring back on Bassanio's finger Antonio repays Bassanio for sacrificing Portia so that he could repay the lawyer who saved his life which he risked when he borrowed money to give Bassanio so that he could woo Portia. With Granville's help, we now plainly see that it was inevitable, it had been inevitable since ancient times, that Shakespeare's Bassanio would give away Portia's ring. As he himself declares: I was enforc'd to send it after him, I was beset with shame and courtesy, My honor would not let ingratitude So much besmear it. Pardon me, good lady, For by these blessed candles of the night, Had you been there, I think you would have begg'd The ring of me to give the worthy doctor. (MV 5.1.216-222) She was there, funnily enough, disguised as that very same "worthy doctor," and, knowing the protocols of gratitude, she knew before she begged for it that her husband would certainly break his promise to her and that she, after a bit of teasing, would forgive him. Cicero, trying to cover as many real life situations as possible, has foreseen Bassanio's dilemma. Under the heading of "keeping promises," he takes up the case of conflicting obligations. When unforeseen circumstances arise, he decides, a promise must be weighed against what's best for all concerned. If I have promised to defend a man in court, but my son falls dangerously ill, I should break my promise and stay with my son, and the person promised should forgive me. In such cases, "good faith" guarantees that the defaulter will have a good reason and that the person promised will accept it (Off. 1.31,32). Aristotle concurs: "Friendship exacts what is possible, not what is due" (Eth. 8.14.4). In the play's historical context, where friendship is a given, Portia would reason that a man who would forsake his friend would as easily forsake his wife. And that's exactly what Granville's Portia says when she sends Bassanio off to succor Antonio: Farewell, my lord, Be cheerful in this trial: as you prove Your faith in friendship, I shall trust your love. (JV 3.1.295-7) The function of the ring trick is to show off a friendship, not, as the recent critics would have it, to pry one apart. Far from opposing her husband's friendship, Portia gladly accepts it as proof of his worth. From this standpoint, the Shylock story is just a subplot in which the wife earns the privilege of being a friend to the friends; the climax of the play occurs when Bassanio sacrifices his wife to his friendship; and the last act re- solves the artificial conflict thus created in such a way as to show that when human relationships are founded on good faith, built upon mutual give and take and give again, formal oaths and promises may easily be be broken to fit unforseen circumstances. For us "male bonding" is the enemy of love. For Granville and for Shakespeare (and for Portia), friendship is love's most reliable insurance. Antonio's problematical sadness. On the topic of Antonio's sadness, Granville picks up a clue that to my knowledge no modern critic has noticed. In his "methodizing" process, he moved Antonio's play-opening line--"I know not why I am so sad"--to Bassan- io's feast, between the toasts and the masque, and merged it with Jessica's fifth act misgiving--"I am never merry when I hear sweet music" (5.1.69). Listening to the music at his friend's feast, Granville's Antonio laments, O Bassanio! There sits a heaviness upon my heart Which wine cannot remove: I know not But music ever makes me thus. (2.2.35-38) Lorenzo's comforting answer to Jessica in act 5 of Shakespeare's play then becomes Bassanio's comforting answer to Antonio act 2 of Granville's: The reason is, your spirits are attentive: For do but note, a wild and wanton herd Or race of youthful [skittish] and unhandled colts Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud, If they but hear by [per]chance a trumpet sound, Or any air of music touch their ears, You strait perceive 'em make a mutual stand, Their savage eyes turned to attentive gaze, By the soft power of music. Therefore the poet Did feign that Orpheus melted stones and rocks; For what so hard, so stubborn, or so fierce, But music for the time doth change its nature. The man, who has not music in his soul, Or is not touched by the concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils, The motions of his mind are as dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus, Let no such man be trusted. ----Mark the music. [Here to be a complete concert of vocal and instrumental Music, after the Italian Manner.] (JV 2.2.35-59) Here at one stroke, Granville connects the masque to the plot, couples friendship with social concord and social concord with music, associates Shylock with social discord, and answers the riddle of the original play's first line. The masque shows how much the future Belmontese love music, how much their lives are permeated by it. (Here Granville simply magnifies the continual presence of music at Portia's house). Bassanio's (originally Lorenzo's) answer identifies music as an analogue, echo, or even generator of social harmony, a force that converts destructive brute force into constructive civilized force. When fanfares of music greet the first three toasts, we are to understand that the feelings they express are congenial. When Antonio commands silence following Shylock's toast to money-- Let birds and beasts of prey howl such vows, All generous notes be hushed: pledge thyself, Jew: None here will stir the glass Nor shall the music sound (2.2.32-35)-- we are to understand that the cash nexus between man and man is perfectly antithetical to friendship; it makes no music, produces no harmony, and abets discord. Shylock's hatred of music is well established in the original. Immediately after forbidding any musical accolade for Shylock's toast, Antonio is seized by his unfathomable melancholy. By this juxtaposition Granville answers the riddle: Antonio is sad because of Shylock, or, more precisely, what he represents is sad because of what Shylock represents. He, the exemplary friend, is "tuned in" to celestial concord, and therefore his "attentive spirits" are more sensitive to discord. "If this be Nature's holy plan,/Have I not reason to lament/What man has made of man?" Loving music more than most, he is more unhappy than most with a scratchy phonograph needle. There are good grounds for giving Antonio Jessica's response to music. Both she and he are sad; neither can abide Shylock, one for his Puritanical austerity, the other for his cruel mode of livelihood. Because music equates to friendship, Antonio "has music in his soul," and Shylock, who hates music, is "fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils." In The Jew of Venice, Granville, who resides in Shakespeare's own moral community, takes up and refutes the principal "subversions," "leaks," "interrogations," and "dark shadows" in The Merchant of Venice that modern and postmodern critics, working from what I argue are irrelevant post- capitalist prejudices, have imposed upon on the play. Without its alleged contradictions, the play has a tight formalist structural unity, it focusses on an essentialist Platonic idea, and, resolving all conflicts, it ends in closure. Unless there are other reasons than those commonly given for alleging that The Merchant of Venice is "multivalent and "plural" in meaning, we will have to assume, for the time being at least, that it isn't. Notes: 1. A few still demur: For example, Harry Levin, in "A Garden in Belmont: The Merchant of Venice, 5.1," and David Bevington, in his most recent edition of The Merchant still assume a conventional comedy in which good triumphs over evil and all live happily ever after. 2. Citations of Shakespeare's plays refer to The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans. 3. Shakespeare must have been more familiar with the moral philosophy of the ancients than we give him credit for. He did, after all, write six plays based on classical sources. Plutarch, his principal source for these plays, continually measures his worthies against ancient Graeco-Roman morality. De Officiis was the first classical text ever printed, at the Monastery of Subiaco in 1465. (De Officiis [Off.] xvii) The British Museum Catalogue lists 11 printed editions of it before 1600--8 interlinear trots, 1 English without Latin, and 2 in Latin, bound with Cicero's De Amicitia and De Senectute, a standard practice on the continent. 18 more editions were published before 1700. For comparison, the BMC lists no edition of any dialogue of Plato in any language printed in England before 1600, and only one edition of Aristotle's Ethics, a translation into English of Brunetto Latini's compendium of its "preceptes of good behauour and perfighte honestie." Sir Thomas Elyot, in his famous Governour (1531), a standard work on the training of gentlemen, lists three essential texts: Plato's works, Aristotle's Ethics, and De Officiis. "Those three bokes," Elyot says, "be almost sufficient to make a perfecte and excellent governour" (1.47-8). In The Complete Gentleman (1622), Henry Peacham refers to De Officiis as a standard beginning Latin text, along with Aesop's Fables, for beginning Greek (29). In the preface to his translation of 1681 Sir Roger L'Estrange calls it "the commonest school book that we have," and goes on to observe, "as it is the best of books, so it is applied to the best of purposes, that is to say, to training up of youth in the study and exercise of virtue." T. W. Baldwin, after exhaustive researches into Shakespeare's learning concluded that he did read De Officiis in grammar school (Martindale 7). Shakespeare's debt to Senecan tragedy is still a matter of debate (Martin- dale 29); but there has never been any diligent study of links to Seneca's moral prose. Professor Kelso's list of those ancients most commonly cited in 16th- century conduct books consists of only four items: Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Seneca (311). Erasmus, Justus Lipsius, and J. F. Gronovius published "famous editions" of Seneca in the 16th and 17th centuries (Seneca, Essays [Ess.] 1.xv). The British Museum Catalogue shows that in 1547 the first Senecan epistle was trans- lated into English by R. Whyttynton, Poet Laureate. Arthur Golding translated De Beneficiis in 1578, and in 1614 Thomas Lodge translated the complete works. Some- thing called Seneca's Morals, probably a compendium of excerpts, was published in English in 1607. Then, in 1678, Sir Roger L'Estrange published Seneca's Morals by Way of Abstract. By 1793 it had gone into 17 editions. 4. Cf. e. g. Rowe and Pope ("Preface") for typical statements of the neo-classical position on Shakespeare. 5. On Antonio's homosexuality cf. e.g. Auden (229-31), Berry (131), Engle (20, 23), Hassel (183), Hill (81), Hyman (110), Novy (144-5), Rockas (346), Tennenhouse "Counter- feit" (61), and Wain (79). Holland (238) cites essays by E. E. Krapf, Graham Midgely, Thomas Arthur Ross, W. I. D. Scott, and L. A. G. Strong ascribing homosexuality to Antonio. 6. On the rivalry between Antonio and Portia cf. e. g. Adelman (79-80), Barton (252, 3), Benston (361, 381), Berger (157, 161), Boose (337-8), Burckhardt (234), Dawson (16-7), Engle (34-7), Felheim (107), Goldberg (135-6, n. 11), Grudin (64-65), Hassell (205), Holaday (115-117), Holmer (69-70), Horwich (199), Howard (124-5), Hyman (109), Jardine (13); Kahn (110), Newman (31-2), Novy (137, 149), Rabkin (18) Tennenhouse "Counterfeit" (59-61), Wheeler (197). 7. This estimate is based on the Shakespeare entry of Schneider, Index to The London Stage, 1660-1800. 8. For sympathy with Shylock cf. e.g. Auden (228), Barber (190-191), Barker (79-80), Barton (252, 253), Burckhardt (206-11), Charlton (128), Cohen (773), Goddard (98), Goldberg (123), Greenblatt (134), Hassel (179, 189, 195), Hatlen (100), Howard (124), Kahn (110), Knight (95), Leggat (141-2), Moisan (197-8), Moody (104-5), Novy (147), Rabkin (13-15), Rockas (351), Siemon (206-7), Tennenhouse ("Counterfeit" 58, 59), Wain (77), Wheeler (198-9), and Whigham 103-111). 9. For the mercenary propensities of the Christians cf. e.g. Auden (232, 234), Berry (113-114), Burckhardt (213), Eggers (328-9), Engle (21), Girard (107), Grudin (56), Hamill (233), Hatlen (100), Howard (124), Leggat (122), Moisan (195), Shell (74-5), Tennenhouse (Power 54), Wheeler (197), Whigham (95). 10. See Columbia Encyclopedia under "Montferrat." 11. 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