The presence of disabled characters like blind Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice and epileptic Othello are handy physical metaphors for the failures of epistemology that occur in both plays. Disability is often construed as a sort of saboteur of knowledge—disability of all kinds inhibiting the ability to perceive the world as an abled person would. But disability also produces a new, necessary sort of knowledge in order to survive and thrive in an unaccommodating world. A disabled epistemology suggests that knowing is contingent on individual, specific experience of the world. Tied to this issue of disabled epistemology is the issue of care—the field's emphasis on issues of relationality and reciprocity gels with disability's concerns about autonomy, self-determination, and accommodation. The ways in which care succeeds or fails informs us of the ways that disability intersects with class, race, and embodied knowledge. Gobbo is operating within a system that cares about him. Disabled beggars are subject to suspicion but expected to receive charity, and the embodied knowledge required to perform disability to an audience grants him access to that charity. On the other hand, because epilepsy and Otherness are compounded in Othello's society, to embrace embodied knowledge of his epilepsy is to become too foreign. To openly acknowledge and work with his disability would make him more socially vulnerable than he already is, but in ignoring it, Othello makes himself physically vulnerable. The dominant ideology cannot allow Othello to understand himself as disabled.

I designed the lighting for William Shakespeare's complex piece, The Merchant of Venice, which was produced by the UMass Amherst Theater Department. In this thesis paper, I will discuss the creative process from start to finish, including relevant lighting paperwork and production photographs.

This thesis explores prescriptive literature and conduct books, specifically The Book of Homilies, and how these prescriptions manifest in Shakespeare’s work. This text examines the depictions of marital relationships and argues that the actions of husbands in two of Shakespeare’s comedies, The Taming of the Shrew and The Merchant of Venice, deviate from prescriptive ideals that homilies deem proper for the husband-and-wife relationship. Through the combination of new historicism and gender criticism, this thesis suggests that Katherine and Portia use submission to gain agency in moments when they seem to have none while showing that the men do not fulfill their husbandly duties. This dynamic demonstrates that submission did not mean subordination, and men in these plays do not totally recognize the agency women have despite the larger scheme of patriarchal power still existing.

Falling within the ambit of the Department of English Literature but with interdisciplinary scope and method, the research undertaken in this thesis examines Michael Radford’s 2004 film production William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice using the Book History approach to textual study. Previously applied almost exclusively to the study of books, Book History examines the text in terms of both its medium and its content, bringing together bibliographical, literary and historical approaches to the study of books within one theoretical paradigm. My research extends this interdisciplinary approach into the filmic medium by using a modified version of Robert Darnton’s “communication circuit” to examine the process of transmission of this Shakespearean film adaptation from creation to reception. The research is not intended as a complete Book History study and even less as a comprehensive investigation of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. Rather, it uses a Shakespearean case study to bring together the two previously discrete fields of Book History and filmic investigation. Drawing on film studies, literary concepts, cultural and media studies, modern management theory as well as reception theories and with the use of both quantitative and qualitative data, I show Book History to be an eminently useful and constructive approach to the study of film.

Comedy is an inherently pleasurable phenomenon with beneficial psychological functions, but its potential to bring on undesirable and socially destabilizing consequences is less intuitively obvious. In this essay, I argue that one of the hitherto under-recognized features of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is its covert problematization of the phenomenon of comedy itself, and that the play invites its audience to become more aware of in what situations laughter is constructive and appropriate. I apply psychological and cultural-historical theories of humor— specifically, Freudian relief theory and Bakhtinian thought on laughter and festivity—as a framework for interpreting the play, with a particular emphasis on the secondary protagonist called Gratiano. I argue that Gratiano serves as a personification of comedy, whose function is to problematize it and demonstrate its positive as well as negative attributes in relation to seriousness and restraint. Gratiano’s laughter-inducing antics compel audience members to sympathize with him in the dialectic which Shakespeare sets up between him and other characters, but the play also portrays his jovial behavior as concomitant with less desirable traits which his comedy successfully obscures. While the character presents comedy as attractive and instinctively preferable to propriety and decorum, he also shows how the allure of laughter and comedy may be used by disingenuous actors to provide an attractive veneer for immoral or abhorrent behavior.

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The Puritans constituted a very vocal influential minority during the time of Shakespeare. One of their more interesting ideas was the doctrine of the covenant, which explained why a transcendent God would care for fallen human beings. God, for Puritans, voluntarily bound himself in a covenant to man. The interrelations of elements of grace and works make it difficult to interpret what a covenant should be like: more like a modern contract or more like a feudalistic promise system? Unlike a contract, God never ends the covenant even when humans disregard their commitment, but instead helps humans fulfill their obligations by means of mercy. The covenant also sets out specific limitations that each party is required to fulfill like a contract. Puritans applied this pattern of the covenant not only to their relationship with God, but to other relationships like business, government, and most interestingly marriage. I will focus on how Shakespeare sets out this same covenantal pattern between man and God in his depiction in Portia's and in Helena's marriages respectively. I use sixteenth and seventeenth century Puritan treatises and sermons as well as secondary experts to illustrate Shakespeare's invocation of a Puritan marriage. This Puritan interpretation of the marriage covenant points toward equality by making the couple equally obligated in the contract, yet requiring more than mere obligation. These authors believed that the marriage covenant should not just be for procreation, but cohabitation and communion of the mind.

Shakespeare's play, The Merchant of Venice, is one of the most misunderstood plays in the playwright's canon. Although the play's popularity is evidence by its history of successful production, critics have looked with puzzlement at the drama because Shakespeare combined three tales having no apparent relationship into one play. The story of the man who is willing to give up his life for his friend, the tales of the caskets, and the love story of the Christian for the Jewess do have a common general theme of love. But there is another underlying theme which is significant to the meaning of the play--the theme which examines the importance of worldly wealth. In the Antonia/Bassanio story, wealth is important because it brings Antonio to the point of sacrifice. In the Bassanio/Portia tale, wealth has made the lady Portia desirable yet must have no importance to Bassanio when he chooses the casket. The Lorenzo/Jessica story demonstrates not only disregard for worldly wealth but the apparent squandering of it. There are also problems in the characters of Antonio and Shylock. Antonio's melancholy is difficult to explain, and Shylock has been interpreted in nearly as many ways as there have been actors who have played to part. All of these difficulties, including that of supposed disunity, are resolved when the play is examined in the atmosphere of its creation. The play historically was born to a nation struggling for material wealth. Its dramatic inheritance was that of the Christian religious tradition brought from the medieval times in the form of the miracle plays. The unifying element of the miracle cycles was the allegory of Christian salvation. And thus it is this same Christian allegory which unties The Merchant of Venice. The Christian allegory also defines in a satisfying way the specific love which each of the seemingly unrelated tales exemplifies. The allegory brings together the apparently dissimilar attitudes toward worldly wealth. I is within the Christian allegory that the roles of Antonio and Shylock, as well as all the minor characters, are precisely determined. It is the purpose of this study to delineate the Christian allegory and thereby identify the dominating and unifying theme of the play. It is the purpose of this study (1) to show that the play contains much of the symbolic allegory which was prevalent in the language of the Church in medieval times, (2) to demonstrate that the allegorical traditions are present in all parts of the play, and (3) to reveal that the Christian allegory makes all aspects of the drama contribute to the entirety of its effects.

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Esta Tese de Doutorado tem por objetivo discutir a questão da mimesis da interioridade no Mercador de Veneza, de William Shakespeare. A pesquisa está embasada na obra Inwardness and Theater in the English Renaissance, de Maus (1995), e na obra Shakespeare Philosophy, de McGinn (2007), na crítica literária da peça. Maus apresenta a interioridade como um constructo social e cultural da Renascença Inglesa. Ela analisa a interioridade tomando como base a oposição entre aparências, consideradas falsas e enganosas na época, e interioridade, que era tida como manifestações sinceras e verdadeiras das dimensões interiores do indivíduo. Contudo, McGinn vai além da discussão de Maus sobre interioridade, ao perceber que Shakespeare representou as dimensões obscuras incontroláveis do indivíduo. Ele apresenta as forças misteriosas que controlam os pendores interiores das personagens. Além disso, a tese busca analisar a constelação de motivos e a retórica da interioridade que representam sentimentos interiores na peça de Shakespeare. Parte da hipótese de que a mimesis shakespeariana da interioridade é representada em sinais, sutis tais como os silêncios, os não-ditos, as rupturas de linguagem, gestos corporais, pathos, contradições de ideias e pensamentos, a consciência, vergonha e atos falhos. Ademais, a mimesis shakespeariana da interioridade é construída através do artifício do espelhamento que é a representação das dimensões interiores e os pendores da mente nos sentimentos, ideias, gestos, pensamentos, comportamento e atitude de outras personagens. Na verdade, Shakespeare não inventou a interioridade, mas aprofundou a representação da interioridade introduzindo traços inovadores na linguagem do drama. Este trabalho também discute o estranho desenvolvimento da crítica sobre a peça, apresentando que a crítica dos séculos XVIII e XIX lia Shylock como um herói trágico, ao passo que a crítica do século XX lia Shylock como um vilão cômico, provavelmente influenciada pelo antissemitismo da primeira metade do século. Essa pesquisa foca sobre a estranha relação entre Antonio e Bassanio, assim como sua relação com Shylock. Sua relação é representada como homoerótica e o desejo de um frívolo sacrifício de Antonio por Bassanio sugere a interioridade de Antonio. Shylock é também representado como o pai primordial da peça e esse detalhe sugere a causa da tristeza de Antonio no começo da peça. Analisa também o teste dos escrínios de Portia e demonstra seu desejo de defraudar o testamento de seu pai, tão logo ela pede que se toque uma canção que sugere em suas rimas o verdadeiro escrínio. Discute os problemas da consciência de Launcelot e da interioridade de Jessica. Analisa também a relação distante entre Jessica e Shylock, como também sua partida da casa de seu pai e roubo de seu dinheiro, como uma forma de afrontar o poder patriarcal. Centra-se também na cegueira de Shylock para com as intenções reais de sua filha. Interpreta a cena do julgamento de Shylock e como Portia forja um julgamento fraudulento, anulando o contrato de Shylock a tomando sua propriedade. Apresenta uma discussão sobre a mimesis shakespeariana de interioridade, com base nas considerações de Auerbach e Dubois, assim como discute o problema do gênero da peça, sugerindo que a peça não é uma mera comédia, mas uma tragicomédia. / This Doctorate thesis aims at discussing the issue of mimesis of inwardness in The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare. This survey is based on Maus‘ Inwardness and Theater in the English Renaissance (1995), McGinn‘s work Shakespeare Philosophy (2007) and the literary criticism on the play. Maus presents inwardness as social and cultural construct of the English Renaissance. She analyses inwardness based on the opposition between appearances, considered false and deceitful in the age, and inwardness, which was taken as true and sincere manifestations of the inward dimensions of the self. However, McGinn goes beyond Maus‘ discussion on inwardness, perceiving that Shakespeare represented the uncontrolled obscure inward dimensions of the self. He presents the mysterious forces which control the characters‘ inward dispositions. Moreover, the thesis aims at analysing the constellation of motifs and the rhetoric of inwardness which represent inward feelings in Shakespeare‘s play. It parts from the hypothesis that Shakespearean mimesis of inwardness is represented in subtle signs such as silences, non-said, breaks in language, bodily gestures, pathos, contradictions in ideas and thoughts, conscience, shame, and verbal slips. Furthermore, Shakespeare‘s mimesis of inwardness is contructed through the mirroring device which is the representation of a character‘s inward dimensions and dispositions of the mind in other character‘s feelings, ideas, thoughts, gestures, behaviour and attitude. Actually, Shakespeare did not invent inwardness, but he deepened the representation of inwardness introducing innovating traits in language in the drama. This work also discusses the awkward development of the criticism on the play, presenting that the 18th and 19th century criticism read Shylock as a tragic hero, whereas 20th century criticism read Shylock as a comic villain probably influenced by anti-Semitism of the first half of the century. This research focuses on the awkward relationship between Antonio and Bassanio, as well as their relationship with Shylock. Their relation is depicted as homoerotic and Antonio‘s desire of a frivolous sacrifice for Bassanio suggests Antonio‘s inwardness. Shylock is also depicted as the primordial father of the play and such detail hints at the cause of Antonio‘s sadness in the beginning of the play. It analyses Portia‘s casket trial and demonstrates her desire of outwitting her father‘s will, as soon as she demands to play a song which suggests in its rhyme the true casket. It discusses the problems of conscience in Launcelot‘s and Jessica‘s inwardness. It also analyses the distant relationship between Jessica and Shylock, as well as her leaving her father‘s house and taking his wealth, as a way of affronting the patriarchal power. It focuses on Shylock‘s blindness towards his daughter‘s real intentions. It analyses the trial scene and how Portia forges a fraudulent trial, undoing Shylock‘s bond and taking his property. It presents a discussion on Shakespeare‘s mimesis of inwardness, based on Auerbach‘s and Dubois‘ assumptions, as well as discusses the problem of the genre of the play, suggesting that the play is not a mere comedy, but a tragicomedy.