The Merchant of Venice (Vol. 53) | Thomas Moisan (essay date 1987)
Thomas Moisan (essay date 1987)
SOURCE: “‘Which is the merchant here? and which the Jew?’: Subversion and Recuperation in The Merchant of Venice,” in Shakespeare Reproduced: The Text in History and Ideology, edited by Jean E. Howard and Marion F. O’Connor, Methuen, Inc., 1987, pp. 188-206.
[In the essay below, Moisan argues that while The Merchant of Venice appears to celebrate the Elizabethan values of Christian ethics and good business, the play instead subtly exposes a contradiction between the apparent belief in these values and whether or not they are actually practiced.]
As a locus in which to ponder the ideological function of the Shakespearean text, The Merchant of Venice is an obvious, and obviously problematic, choice. At a glance, the Merchant seems to inscribe and affirm an ideological calculus that fused the interests of the state and the assertions of a providentialist...
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