The Merchant of Venice (Vol. 87) | Russell Astley (essay date April 1979)
Russell Astley (essay date April 1979)
SOURCE: Astley, Russell. “Through a Looking Glass, Darkly: Judging Hazards in The Merchant of Venice.” Ariel 10, no. 2 (April 1979): 17-34.
[In the following essay, Astley explores issues of morality and ethical risk-taking in The Merchant of Venice.]
The Merchant of Venice bases its dramatic logic on the New Testament premise that you get what you give, and the play's consistent enactment of this looking-glass logic creates a world in which mirroring is a major internal principle of order. This makes for a rather peculiar play-world: a providential world where reversal (the last made first) and reflexiveness (the judge self-judged) rule; a world which offers at any moment to confound subject with object and appearance with reality; a world, that is to say, oddly akin to Alice's Looking-glass Garden, where you approach your goal by advancing in the opposite direction. The three main...
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