I have spoken this line said by Puck in two different productions. The first was set in ancient Baghdad, and our director changed many things besides the location like names, dialog, even the play within a play. I was "Div," and I believe the line got translated to "And we Djinn sweep away all that the day has been." In the other production I was one part of a three-person Puck and we whispered the sweeping part as if it were the end of a lullaby. I loved both productions and my part in them, but in neither one did I pay enough attention to this line.
I've been thinking about this since one of my professors brought it up in class last week. He used it as a metaphor for things left unresolved. In Midsummer Night's Dream, for example, things seem to tie up fairly nicely in the end - Hermia and Lysander get to marry, Helena gets her Demetrius, Hippolyta and Theseus are getting along better, and Oberon and Titania have stopped fighting. However, all is not really well. Demetrius is still tricked into loving Helena due to the flower's charm. Titania was duped into having sex with a demi-donkey, and due to that false guilt submits to her husband's will to give up the boy she promised her late kinswoman she would raise and protect. Not exactly wrapped up in the nicest and neatest of bows. So Puck, the most mischievous of all, is responsible for sweeping all this dust behind the door, out of sight, out of mind, and we can all continue to live in a bit of a dream world. The dust is hidden, but not gone.
Hits a chord with me. My life seems much too dusty these days.
I am an expertly efficient, routinized machine. I wake up, go to my classes, go to work, eat, do, perform, and sleep (somewhat). I show up on time, I keep my schedule, I do the work that is required of me. I've even gotten better at having fun, having a social life, keeping up with friends and family as best I can. Nobody can deny that I am completely functional. But then I have all these worries, doubts, and fears that I don't know what to do with. They settle quietly on surfaces or nestle in the cracks but they never leave. Yes, I do well in school and I'm graduating in the spring but I have no idea what comes next. I don't know what I want to do, what career I'd like to go into, even what I'm qualified for. I don't even have a pipe dream anymore, no "I wish I could be" or "My dream job is." I've always been in school and I have no idea what I'll do with myself outside of it. I don't even know where I'll be living, or how I'll occupy myself, even go about looking for a job when I have no goals in my head. All this work, and the whole point of the entire operation has yet to assert itself, to clue me in on its essence. I have always enjoyed existentialism and I'm beginning to understand it better than I ever have. Everyday I'm occupied with the means, the means, the means, and no end emerges. I work, I execute, but I do not make or create. Most days I don't notice but some days something happens to disturb the whole operation and all these things are remembered. The dust is kicked up again and gets into my nose and my lungs and it almost chokes me. Maybe that's being too melodramatic, but I can't deny that the anxiety and the panic is there, that my heart races and breathing gets harder and I worry that if I don't find an anchor soon I'll get swept away with it all.
There wouldn't be a problem if the dust would just stay behind the door, stay settled, but it has a way of getting out into the air. A few days ago I experienced a big disturbance when I saw someone I thought and hoped that I would never see again. It has been a fairly long time, but the memories are still unpleasant. More evidence that you can put things out of the way but you can never eradicate them. I have many memories that behave similarly, pop up when I least want them, bothering me, infecting me. Memories of people, people I've loved, people who have left, people who hurt and whom I cannot fix, things that have happened, things that recur, feelings that are so intense as to be surreal. Sometimes the effect of all this is so dissociating that I feel I cannot even recognize my own life. I've lived 21 years, long to some and short to others, and I would have thought I'd be more at peace with things, that they'd seem more familiar. But that does not seem to be the case.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who wonders these things, like how much dust can be tolerated before it clogs the machine and stops all functioning. I know most people have similar dust in their lives, pushed into dark corners and crevices and left to be undisturbed and forgotten for as long as possible. And I know people's tolerances for it surely differ. It's just that for me, at this stage in my life, I find it to be a very prominent and fairly upsetting presence that, sweep as I might, does not hide for long.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Saturday, October 22, 2011
"Your mind is tossing on the ocean" - The Merchant of Venice I.i
This blog title is dedicated to my drinking compadres from last night who most likely woke up hungover this morning. I don't know what you might remember... I'll just say that eventually we put the llama back, and there's an end.
Right now I'm at one of my workplaces. There have been no customers since I got here at what my father calls "the ass-crack of dawn" (he has such a way with words). To pass at least one of the next four hours I have to sit here, I think I'll rant a bit about Shylock. As you do.
First of all, Shylock is not a caricature of a Jew like Barabas in The Jew of Malta. He's portrayed like a real person/character, with nuance and depth and ambiguity. Some people think this is anti-Semitic, since Shakespeare doesn't just go to the evil stock character. Sorry, this is a difficult viewpoint to articulate. I think it's kind of like, if you make someone an over-the-top stereotype then people don't really take the message seriously because they know it's a stock character; however, if you make a more realistic character then people are more apt to take things seriously. Which is probably why people don't get fussy about Marlowe's Jew; it was an obvious caricature and there's no reason to bother with it. But Shakespeare took great pains, in my opinion, to make Shylock realistic, and then people start to wonder if that means there's a deeper, more serious bias and discrimination at work. Personally, I think that's incorrect; I think Shylock better shows the hypocrisy of Christians than the maliciousness of Jews. Antonio tries to paint Shylock as so very different from him, but I think there are a lot of parallels that he doesn't want to acknowledge. In a way Portia acknowledges them very publicly, when she comes into the court disguised as Balthasar and asks, "Which is the merchant, and which the Jew?" as if they were indistinguishable from one another. The mistake confuses me further when I think that Jews had to wear red caps outside their ghetto so Shylock should have been wearing one in court and Antonio wouldn't have been. I'd have to check more historical background about that, but again, I think there's a deliberate point being made that Antonio and Shylock are not so different as Antonio would have them be.
But I get ahead of myself. Let's get some historical context. Venice was huge into mercantilism at the time; their economy depended on seafaring ventures. At the same time, it was also heavily dependent on moneylending, since people needed cash to keep the circulation going while waiting for their ships to come in. Now, here's where things get dicey. There is a verse in Deuteronomy that outlines the practice of usury (charging any interest on loans) and when it is or isn't okay. Here it is: "Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury." Seems straightforward enough, but religious matters never really are, are they? Those of the Jewish faith interpreted this as sinful to lend money with interest to other Jews, but with Christians it was absolutely fine. Christians, however, interpret "thy brother" as everyone, Christians and Jews alike (because you know, Jews were just mistaken in their faith; everyone's a Christian who eventually will or won't come around to that knowledge). So Christians weren't allowed to lend with interest, but Jews were. Usury was one of the very few avenues open for Jews to do business, and that's how a great number of them made their living.
Back to the play. In the third scene of Act 1 Bassanio is trying to get Shylock to loan Antonio money so Antonio can give Bassanio the money to buy pretty things and impress Portia. Shylock reveals in an aside that he doesn't like Christians. This is a typical thing for Jewish characters in plays to say; they're all supposed to hate Christians on principal because Jews are devils and fiends. But see how he qualifies his opinion: "I hate him for he is a Christian, but morefor that in low simplicity he lends out money gratis and brings down the rate of usance here with us in Venice."
It's an economic issue! Antonio lends money to his friends without interest which takes away from Shylock's business and messes up the usurance rates. Naturally he would be pissed! More than that, Antonio spits on him and spurns him like a dog. Doesn't Shylock have every reason to think ill of Antonio? Antonio despises him for his usury, yet he is full willing to borrow money from him. It's totally hypocritical. Shylock's doing him a favor and he claims that he will continue to spit and strike him as his enemy anyway.
So what does Shylock do? He offers to lend Antonio money without interest, which is the CHRISTIAN form of moneylending. There's great language play with the word "kind, " which can mean "nice" but also mean being of your category, your kind, which in this Antonio and Bassanio's case is Christian. By agreeing not to charge interest but instead putting a pound of flesh down as collateral, Shylock is actually doing the Christian thing! I think Shakespeare's power of satire here is absolutely beautiful. Shylock mocks them by saying it's more Christian to offer up human flesh rather than have interest. By Antonio's reply, I think he kind of recognizes this farce, and is full willing to go along with it. Shylock is smartly saying that he act of their kind, but at the same time respecting Antonio's desire that they remain enemies with the whole pound of flesh thing. Honestly, I think it's some kind of genius.
For those who argue that it was Shylock's plan all along to murder Antonio, let me point out a couple things. One, Antonio is not prone to going to Jewish moneylenders, so there's no reason that Shylock would expect to have any kind of opportunity to harm/kill Antonio. Two, it is by INCREDIBLE and odds-defying coincidence that Antonio was unable to pay back the money on time. Antonio says that he expects "thrice three times" (nine times for those with math troubles) the value of 3,000 ducats (bonus points for calculating how many ducats he expects!) in two months, which is a full month before the bond is due. He has a number of ships in a number of different places; it might be worrisome if they were all together and could all get wrecked together, but they're not. Shylock himself describes Antonio's prospects:
"He hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another to the Indies. I understand moreover, upon the Rialto, he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England, and other ventures he hath squandered abroad."
Yes, mercantilism is risky, but with that many ships out in that many different locations, you'd expect at least one of them to make it back on time to pay the bond. But SHOCKINGLY, they all wreck separately. I'm sure Shylock did not expect that the pound of flesh thing would ever really pay out; in fact, when he hears of Antonio's ships being wrecked he says "There I have another bad match" as if he is upset that Antonio can't pay him back. He only begins to really go after the pound of flesh when his daughter robs him and leaves him and Antonio's friends all help her get away with it. He's emotionally grieved, and he wants some kind of revenge, so then yeah, he goes a little crazy and bloodthirsty. I'm not saying that he's right in continuing to insist on killing Antonio rather than taking the money, or even 20 times the money (ughhhh, the math, it hurts), I'm just saying that I understand where that comes from. People do stupid things when they're grieving, and take it out on the wrong people. And then of course it bites them in the ass.
Other things of note: Shylock went about the pound of flesh thing completely lawfully. He could have tried to murder Antonio in secret; instead, he goes to the justice of the courts and procedes perfectly in accordance with the law. There's nothing technically wrong in that. In fact, the legality of the final sentencing of Shylock is what is questionable. The law stipulates that half his lands go to the wronged party (Antonio) and half go to the state, but the ruling that he must leave Lorenzo and Jessica his money in a will and convert to Christianity is entirely subjective. The law requires nothing of the sort; it's honestly just a really low-blow from Antonio. They set Antonio up to be the Job-like sufferer, but at the very end it is Shylock who is left destitute and suffering. He could scream and wail and spout his hate for Christians, but instead he merely says "I am not well" and leaves. It's a moment of profound sympathy for him. There are a number of other sympathetic moments as well, like the "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech. Shakespeare did not need to include any of that, but he purposely chooses to give Shylock a sympathetic voice. And it isn't a hate-filled soliloquy when Shylock is alone and secretly plotting his revenge; it is delivered openly and honestly to Antonio's kinsmen, which is something everyone can respect.
Alright, I think I've made a good case for now. If any of my readers (if I have any readers, that is) wish to debate this point or bring up any evidence I haven't addressed, please do so. Those are the kind of conversations I enjoy.
P.S. Sorry if this post is a bit scattered or linguistically sub-par; I'm not having a very eloquent day. I blame the llama.
Right now I'm at one of my workplaces. There have been no customers since I got here at what my father calls "the ass-crack of dawn" (he has such a way with words). To pass at least one of the next four hours I have to sit here, I think I'll rant a bit about Shylock. As you do.
First of all, Shylock is not a caricature of a Jew like Barabas in The Jew of Malta. He's portrayed like a real person/character, with nuance and depth and ambiguity. Some people think this is anti-Semitic, since Shakespeare doesn't just go to the evil stock character. Sorry, this is a difficult viewpoint to articulate. I think it's kind of like, if you make someone an over-the-top stereotype then people don't really take the message seriously because they know it's a stock character; however, if you make a more realistic character then people are more apt to take things seriously. Which is probably why people don't get fussy about Marlowe's Jew; it was an obvious caricature and there's no reason to bother with it. But Shakespeare took great pains, in my opinion, to make Shylock realistic, and then people start to wonder if that means there's a deeper, more serious bias and discrimination at work. Personally, I think that's incorrect; I think Shylock better shows the hypocrisy of Christians than the maliciousness of Jews. Antonio tries to paint Shylock as so very different from him, but I think there are a lot of parallels that he doesn't want to acknowledge. In a way Portia acknowledges them very publicly, when she comes into the court disguised as Balthasar and asks, "Which is the merchant, and which the Jew?" as if they were indistinguishable from one another. The mistake confuses me further when I think that Jews had to wear red caps outside their ghetto so Shylock should have been wearing one in court and Antonio wouldn't have been. I'd have to check more historical background about that, but again, I think there's a deliberate point being made that Antonio and Shylock are not so different as Antonio would have them be.
But I get ahead of myself. Let's get some historical context. Venice was huge into mercantilism at the time; their economy depended on seafaring ventures. At the same time, it was also heavily dependent on moneylending, since people needed cash to keep the circulation going while waiting for their ships to come in. Now, here's where things get dicey. There is a verse in Deuteronomy that outlines the practice of usury (charging any interest on loans) and when it is or isn't okay. Here it is: "Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury." Seems straightforward enough, but religious matters never really are, are they? Those of the Jewish faith interpreted this as sinful to lend money with interest to other Jews, but with Christians it was absolutely fine. Christians, however, interpret "thy brother" as everyone, Christians and Jews alike (because you know, Jews were just mistaken in their faith; everyone's a Christian who eventually will or won't come around to that knowledge). So Christians weren't allowed to lend with interest, but Jews were. Usury was one of the very few avenues open for Jews to do business, and that's how a great number of them made their living.
Back to the play. In the third scene of Act 1 Bassanio is trying to get Shylock to loan Antonio money so Antonio can give Bassanio the money to buy pretty things and impress Portia. Shylock reveals in an aside that he doesn't like Christians. This is a typical thing for Jewish characters in plays to say; they're all supposed to hate Christians on principal because Jews are devils and fiends. But see how he qualifies his opinion: "I hate him for he is a Christian, but morefor that in low simplicity he lends out money gratis and brings down the rate of usance here with us in Venice."
It's an economic issue! Antonio lends money to his friends without interest which takes away from Shylock's business and messes up the usurance rates. Naturally he would be pissed! More than that, Antonio spits on him and spurns him like a dog. Doesn't Shylock have every reason to think ill of Antonio? Antonio despises him for his usury, yet he is full willing to borrow money from him. It's totally hypocritical. Shylock's doing him a favor and he claims that he will continue to spit and strike him as his enemy anyway.
So what does Shylock do? He offers to lend Antonio money without interest, which is the CHRISTIAN form of moneylending. There's great language play with the word "kind, " which can mean "nice" but also mean being of your category, your kind, which in this Antonio and Bassanio's case is Christian. By agreeing not to charge interest but instead putting a pound of flesh down as collateral, Shylock is actually doing the Christian thing! I think Shakespeare's power of satire here is absolutely beautiful. Shylock mocks them by saying it's more Christian to offer up human flesh rather than have interest. By Antonio's reply, I think he kind of recognizes this farce, and is full willing to go along with it. Shylock is smartly saying that he act of their kind, but at the same time respecting Antonio's desire that they remain enemies with the whole pound of flesh thing. Honestly, I think it's some kind of genius.
For those who argue that it was Shylock's plan all along to murder Antonio, let me point out a couple things. One, Antonio is not prone to going to Jewish moneylenders, so there's no reason that Shylock would expect to have any kind of opportunity to harm/kill Antonio. Two, it is by INCREDIBLE and odds-defying coincidence that Antonio was unable to pay back the money on time. Antonio says that he expects "thrice three times" (nine times for those with math troubles) the value of 3,000 ducats (bonus points for calculating how many ducats he expects!) in two months, which is a full month before the bond is due. He has a number of ships in a number of different places; it might be worrisome if they were all together and could all get wrecked together, but they're not. Shylock himself describes Antonio's prospects:
"He hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another to the Indies. I understand moreover, upon the Rialto, he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England, and other ventures he hath squandered abroad."
Yes, mercantilism is risky, but with that many ships out in that many different locations, you'd expect at least one of them to make it back on time to pay the bond. But SHOCKINGLY, they all wreck separately. I'm sure Shylock did not expect that the pound of flesh thing would ever really pay out; in fact, when he hears of Antonio's ships being wrecked he says "There I have another bad match" as if he is upset that Antonio can't pay him back. He only begins to really go after the pound of flesh when his daughter robs him and leaves him and Antonio's friends all help her get away with it. He's emotionally grieved, and he wants some kind of revenge, so then yeah, he goes a little crazy and bloodthirsty. I'm not saying that he's right in continuing to insist on killing Antonio rather than taking the money, or even 20 times the money (ughhhh, the math, it hurts), I'm just saying that I understand where that comes from. People do stupid things when they're grieving, and take it out on the wrong people. And then of course it bites them in the ass.
Other things of note: Shylock went about the pound of flesh thing completely lawfully. He could have tried to murder Antonio in secret; instead, he goes to the justice of the courts and procedes perfectly in accordance with the law. There's nothing technically wrong in that. In fact, the legality of the final sentencing of Shylock is what is questionable. The law stipulates that half his lands go to the wronged party (Antonio) and half go to the state, but the ruling that he must leave Lorenzo and Jessica his money in a will and convert to Christianity is entirely subjective. The law requires nothing of the sort; it's honestly just a really low-blow from Antonio. They set Antonio up to be the Job-like sufferer, but at the very end it is Shylock who is left destitute and suffering. He could scream and wail and spout his hate for Christians, but instead he merely says "I am not well" and leaves. It's a moment of profound sympathy for him. There are a number of other sympathetic moments as well, like the "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech. Shakespeare did not need to include any of that, but he purposely chooses to give Shylock a sympathetic voice. And it isn't a hate-filled soliloquy when Shylock is alone and secretly plotting his revenge; it is delivered openly and honestly to Antonio's kinsmen, which is something everyone can respect.
Alright, I think I've made a good case for now. If any of my readers (if I have any readers, that is) wish to debate this point or bring up any evidence I haven't addressed, please do so. Those are the kind of conversations I enjoy.
P.S. Sorry if this post is a bit scattered or linguistically sub-par; I'm not having a very eloquent day. I blame the llama.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
"By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world." - The Merchant of Venice I.ii
I shall make no excuses for my absence from this blog, except that many Shakespearean characters share my lack of commitment, and so I must consider myself in good company with a rich literary history of inconstancy.
Quick update on my life: final year of undergrad at the university, no clue as to what I'm doing after graduation. Seriously. No clue. Most days I'm screaming on the inside; the other days my neighbors call the police about a noise violation. Books and plays are still a refuge, though; not a lot of time to read on my own, but my Elizabethan Revenge Plays course provides me with some opportunities. We're currently in the middle of The Merchant of Venice.
I have an interesting history with this play. The first time I read it I hated it because I hated everyone in it. They all seemed to be massive bitches to one another, all highly hypocritical, occasionally inciting my sympathy only to have me withdraw it when they did something ridiculous like forcing someone to convert or choosing flesh over thousands of ducats or setting their husband up to look like an ass. All their actions seemed back-biting, nasty, and largely unnecessary.
Now that's kinda why I like it.
Not that I like hypocritical people. But we can't really castigate anyone in the play in particular because EVERYONE is hypocritical. No one's wholly evil or wholly pure. It's a realist play, in a way. No one is free of flaws, and as much as you get annoyed with them you cannot judge them too harshly because there's always something you can relate to: the petty side of you, the side that isn't always magnanimous, the side that's woken up on the wrong side and doesn't care who you piss off during your bad mood. We're all bitches, to some extent. Even if we don't act like it, we certainly think it. And thank goodness, because purity is boring. Shades of gray give things depth.
Take Portia, for example. Holy shit is she judgmental, even racist to a point. But she's spunky and cheeky, and we kinda like that. While she harshly critiques all her suitors, we giggle. She's bound by her father's will and cannot choose her husband for herself, but funny how the song she plays before Bassanio chooses the casket has endrhymes that all sound like "LEAD." Hint-hint-wink-wink-say-no-more, Bassanio. One is reminded of all the subtlety of Steve Martin's bird call signal in The Three Amigos. Again, can we blame her? Sure, she wants to be a good lovely subservient dutiful daughter, but doesn't want to be hitched to and under obligation to procreate with a complete git. Close your eyes and think of Belmont... *shudder*
Then, we're all pleased as punch with Portia when she cross-dresses and saves Antonio's life, but because of one little remark by Bassanio about Portia being dead to save Antonio she pulls the whole ring bullshit and I personally question how much I like her at all. Alright, I'd be jealous too if my husband-to-be clearly had some homoerotic goings-on that I wasn't previously aware of, but come on, people say hyperbolic things when someone's about to have their heart bloodthirstily excised in the middle of a public court. IT HAPPENS. No need to pretend you've cuckolded them out of revenge for losing a piece of jewelry that you demanded they give up when you were disguised as a man. All you're going to do by using jealousy as an aphrodisiac is create fidelity problems down the road. Trust me on this one. Also, as a friend of mine observed, Antonio's speech at the play's opening, saying "In sooth, I know not why I am so sad," clearly demonstrates that Bassanio's not putting out like he used to, so Portia doesn't have too much competition there to worry about. Appreciate that your man's a bit of a limp-wrist and therefore a great shopping buddy, and move on. Portia's ego is plenty healthy enough to believe she has the feminine power to make Bassanio bat for her team.
So far my discussion has been very Portia based, but I have a bunch to say on the other characters, particularly Antonio vs. Shylock. In my course we're doing a debate on the play, examining Shakespeare's use of the English Christian name "Shylock" for his Jewish character and whether that could be called defamatory. Luckily, I'm on the defense, so no burden of proof for me. Honestly, for every accusation that Shylock is evil there is a counter-argument that he is not evil but understandable, or that Antonio and other characters are at least as evil as he is. I will leave a full discussion of this point until the next post, which I am determined will be sometime in the next week.
Skeptics, don't look at me in that tone of voice.
Quick update on my life: final year of undergrad at the university, no clue as to what I'm doing after graduation. Seriously. No clue. Most days I'm screaming on the inside; the other days my neighbors call the police about a noise violation. Books and plays are still a refuge, though; not a lot of time to read on my own, but my Elizabethan Revenge Plays course provides me with some opportunities. We're currently in the middle of The Merchant of Venice.
I have an interesting history with this play. The first time I read it I hated it because I hated everyone in it. They all seemed to be massive bitches to one another, all highly hypocritical, occasionally inciting my sympathy only to have me withdraw it when they did something ridiculous like forcing someone to convert or choosing flesh over thousands of ducats or setting their husband up to look like an ass. All their actions seemed back-biting, nasty, and largely unnecessary.
Now that's kinda why I like it.
Not that I like hypocritical people. But we can't really castigate anyone in the play in particular because EVERYONE is hypocritical. No one's wholly evil or wholly pure. It's a realist play, in a way. No one is free of flaws, and as much as you get annoyed with them you cannot judge them too harshly because there's always something you can relate to: the petty side of you, the side that isn't always magnanimous, the side that's woken up on the wrong side and doesn't care who you piss off during your bad mood. We're all bitches, to some extent. Even if we don't act like it, we certainly think it. And thank goodness, because purity is boring. Shades of gray give things depth.
Take Portia, for example. Holy shit is she judgmental, even racist to a point. But she's spunky and cheeky, and we kinda like that. While she harshly critiques all her suitors, we giggle. She's bound by her father's will and cannot choose her husband for herself, but funny how the song she plays before Bassanio chooses the casket has endrhymes that all sound like "LEAD." Hint-hint-wink-wink-say-no-more, Bassanio. One is reminded of all the subtlety of Steve Martin's bird call signal in The Three Amigos. Again, can we blame her? Sure, she wants to be a good lovely subservient dutiful daughter, but doesn't want to be hitched to and under obligation to procreate with a complete git. Close your eyes and think of Belmont... *shudder*
Then, we're all pleased as punch with Portia when she cross-dresses and saves Antonio's life, but because of one little remark by Bassanio about Portia being dead to save Antonio she pulls the whole ring bullshit and I personally question how much I like her at all. Alright, I'd be jealous too if my husband-to-be clearly had some homoerotic goings-on that I wasn't previously aware of, but come on, people say hyperbolic things when someone's about to have their heart bloodthirstily excised in the middle of a public court. IT HAPPENS. No need to pretend you've cuckolded them out of revenge for losing a piece of jewelry that you demanded they give up when you were disguised as a man. All you're going to do by using jealousy as an aphrodisiac is create fidelity problems down the road. Trust me on this one. Also, as a friend of mine observed, Antonio's speech at the play's opening, saying "In sooth, I know not why I am so sad," clearly demonstrates that Bassanio's not putting out like he used to, so Portia doesn't have too much competition there to worry about. Appreciate that your man's a bit of a limp-wrist and therefore a great shopping buddy, and move on. Portia's ego is plenty healthy enough to believe she has the feminine power to make Bassanio bat for her team.
So far my discussion has been very Portia based, but I have a bunch to say on the other characters, particularly Antonio vs. Shylock. In my course we're doing a debate on the play, examining Shakespeare's use of the English Christian name "Shylock" for his Jewish character and whether that could be called defamatory. Luckily, I'm on the defense, so no burden of proof for me. Honestly, for every accusation that Shylock is evil there is a counter-argument that he is not evil but understandable, or that Antonio and other characters are at least as evil as he is. I will leave a full discussion of this point until the next post, which I am determined will be sometime in the next week.
Skeptics, don't look at me in that tone of voice.
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