Reading Law with The Merchant of Venice
Document Type
Essay
Publication Title
Law & Liberty
Publication Date
12-10-2021
Abstract
(Excerpt)
Ask attorneys to identify Shakespeare’s greatest play about law and lawyers, and they will likely name The Merchant of Venice. Law plays a central role in Measure for Measure and features in other plays as well, notably Henry V and the less well-known King John. But no play captures lawyers’ imaginations like Merchant, with its climactic court hearing, its famous argument by Portia, and its meditation on justice and mercy in a legal system. Four hundred years after Shakespeare invented him, law professors and jurists continue to moot Shylock’s case. Law reviews devote symposia to Merchant and courts quote the play repeatedly, not only for rhetorical decoration, but in support of substantive rulings.
Merchant fascinates lawyers. Yet, in legal terms, the play is preposterous. The basic assumption on which the plot turns, that Shylock has a legal right to enforce his contract and collect a pound of flesh from Antonio, is absurd, as is Portia’s argument that, if it were enforceable, the contract would not allow Shylock to shed a drop of blood. Moreover, the idea that Christians would find giving or receiving interest on loans illegitimate was already an anachronism by Shakespeare’s time. As Harold Berman makes clear in his majestic history, Law and Revolution, both canon law and the law merchant had long allowed for reasonable interest on loans. “Usury” referred to excessive interest, which reflected the sin of avarice.
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