Tesina - The Role of Venice in Shakespeare s Plays

The Merchant of Venice, as we mentioned above, Venice is a completely different society

from Belmont and vice versa. Furthermore, Frye asserts that usually the birth of the new

society is symbolized by a heroine, in this case Portia, who experiences her rebirth in

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Belmont. The same happens in Othello, where there is a strong distinction between

Venice and Cyprus. The geographical shift from Venice to Cyprus promises a collection of

problems to the couple of Othello and Desdemona. Cyprus becomes the setting for a

series of personal revenges, tragic misreadings, stereotypically negative views of Moors

and several deaths.

As Alessandro Serpieri stressed, Venice was the perfect place where Shakespeare could

set The Merchant of Venice because this city resembles an image of his mercantile

London and shows contemporary discrimination and tensions. On the one hand, we can

say that since the most part of Venice richness came from trade its laws had to be

tolerant, but, on the other hand, social, ideological and psychological discrimination

were always hiding under the surface of its new bourgeois society.

While Jews had been legally banned from England since 1290, Venice had laws in place

to protect non-Venetian traders who supported the city's economic well-being.

Venetians were considered to be greedy and to be in love with money and in order to

satisfy this love and need for trade, they usually exploit the Jews. Despite the fact, as we

mentioned before, that Venice was the richest city in terms of ethnicity, it needs to be

said that racism, even if in a different way from what it is considered nowadays, played a

major part in Venice and, as a consequence, in both Shakespeare’s plays. First of all, we

have to say that there was no Jew in England but in Venice there were a good

percentage and they were allowed to be moneylender. Thus, the merchants depend on

the Jews’ money in order to make their affairs. Moneylending was important to the

Christian community but at the same time was considered immoral, leading to a sort of

paradox between the two ideas. When Shylock and Antonio discuss the terms of the

repayment, the Jew asks for a pound of flesh, and he uses the story of Jacob and Laban

to justify himself for being a usurer. The story is used to prove that a work based on

landing can be rewarded without an exchange of money. In this way Shylock avoid the

dispute of usury even if this, of course, played a key role in Venice. Antonio, after all

accepts the bond because he needs the money and also because it was a usual motif in

Venice. Once again Shakespeare is showing us a society in which citizens are able to

make law themselves.

In The Merchant of Venice Act 1, Scene 2, we assist at Portia asking Nerissa to list off

each of the competitors so she can scorn them individually. In this way, she takes a look

at all the suitors of the three caskets’ competition and makes fun of them by describing

10 Northrop Frye, A Natural Perspective (Columbia University Press, 1964) 5

the various stereotypes of Europe at that time: the first one is the Neapolitan Prince

who, according to the lady’s point of view, only talks of his horse; the second one is the

County Palatine who is way too gloomy; then, there is the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon,

who has too many personalities for Portia and, in addition, he is not even considered a

real man because of his sophistication; the fourth one is Falconbridge who does not

speak any language, like most of English men, because he lacks of Latin, French and

Italian and even if he is a good-looking man, he has no sense of fashion, which is a typical

feature of English; Portia than mocks the Scottish Lord who comes from an inferior

nation; then she talks about the Duke of Saxony and how much she hates him when he is

sober. The last one is the Venetian Bassanio, a scholar and a soldier that once visited

Portia’s court, which is the most suitable of all the suitors. This is a proof that for a

Venetian another Venetian came always first. Another example of this in The Merchant

of Venice is represented by the character of Shylock who has apparently been accepted

by the Venetian society in terms of money, but when it is time to choose between a

Venetian, like Antonio, and a non-Venetian as he is, everyone takes the part of the first

one and try to help him even if he is truly in debt with Shylock.

A very similar thing happens in Othello. First of all, we have to mention the fact that the

subtitle of Othello is The Moor of Venice and, even if it was unusual at that time to write

a play with a black protagonist, the Elizabethan period was the time when England was

very interested in exotic characters, orientalism and commerce. Because of this, Othello

is one of the first black heroes in English literature. In this play, Othello, unlike Shylock, is

fully integrated in the Christian community and in the Venetian army, since he is a

military general of the highest rank, but, despite this, he will never feel himself a true

venetian even if he has risen to a position of power and influence. His status as a black-

skinned, or ‘blackamoor’ as he is often defined with, as a foreigner in Venice, marks him

as an outsider and exposes him to racism, especially by his wife's father, who believes his

daughter's interracial marriage can only be the result of Othello's trickery. ‘Damn’d as

thou art, thou hast enchanted her; For I’ll refer me to all things of sense, If she in chains

of magic were not bound, Whether a maid so tender, fair and happy, So opposite to

marriage that she shunned the wealthy curled darlings of our nation, Would ever have,

to incur a general mock, Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom Of such a thing as

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thou, to fear, not to delight.’

Moreover, to contribute to Brabantio’s idea, Iago pushes him to intervene by making him

imagine the horrible intercourse which was taking place: ‘Even now, very now, an old

black ram, is tupping your white ewe; arise, arise […]’ (1.1.87). In this sense, Iago wants

to convey an image of bestial sexuality, which is his main obsession and which he tries to

project onto the Moor. Love is contaminated with obscenity, Iago goes on and says that

when Desdemona will be sick of sex with this beastly alien, ‘her delicate tenderness will

11 William Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Agostino Lombardo, (Milano, Feltrinelli, 1996) 6

find itself abused, begin to heave the gorge, disrelish and abhor the Moor.’ (2.1.229) This

episode brings out what was always lurking in white European civilization, whose bonds

‘could not admit any kind of downright intrusion of the Other into its network of superior

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relationship.’ This, once again, is a proof that the Venetian accept every other

nationality and ethnicity but, in the end, they will always favourite and prefer

themselves.

In Shakespeare’s time one of the most recurrent connotation used to describe Venice

was ‘the Rich’. As we mentioned before, the main source of the city’s wealth was the

trade with the East. In fact, in the opening scene of The Merchant of Venice, Salerio

imagines Antonio’s cargo as consisting of spices and silks. An important proof of this are

the words written in 1494 by the Milanese Canon Pietro Casola: ‘I must make my excuses

to the readers of this my itinerary, if it should seem to them that I have overpraised this

city of Venice. What I write is not written to win the goodwill of the Venetian, but to set

down the truth. And I declare that it is impossible to tell or write fully of the beauty, the

magnificence or the wealth of the city of Venice. Something indeed can be told and

written to pass the time as I do, but it will be incredible to anyone who has not seen the

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city.’ Another symbol of the Venetian wealth that can be mentioned came from the

legend of The Treasure of Saint Mark which consists in a collection of precious diamonds

and high value object where the most interesting nucleus is represented by objects

brought to the city from Constantinople after the Venetian conquest.

Alongside the wealth and richness, Venice was famous for its political wisdom and this

aspect of Venice was a source of pride for the city since it was considered as a free place,

although with its own rules and statues, which was not subject to the restrictive laws of

an empire. Venice was liberal and neutral in its businesses with foreign countries,

representing a strong commercial power and at the same time, the Republican

government, ruled by the Doge and the Senate, was an example of perfect political

wisdom in the exertion of strict rulings and laws. According to Thomas, Judges in Venice

have a particular freedom, that represent a sign of their legal system which is quite

different from the rest of Europe: ‘in Venice the legal system is based on the principle

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that the law is less a code than a practice.’ Shakespeare, like Thomas, proves that the

Venetian citizens are able to define their ways of thinking about the law, and that what

they argue can become indeed law. It is well known, in fact, that Venice had the best

political and administrative system which was the main reason that made English so

interested in it. Shakespeare intuited things very well when he had Othello described

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Venetian life: ‘Tis a pageant to keep us in it false gaze.’ (1.3.27) This is, of course, one of

12 Alessandro Serpieri, ‘Othello and Venice: Discrimination and Projection’ Vision of Venice in Shakespeare,

Laura Tosi and Shaul Bassi, p.185-193

13 Pietro Casola, Canon Pietro Casola's Pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the Year 1494, ed. M. Margaret Newett

(Manchester University Press, 1907)

14 William Thomas, The History of Italy (1549), ed. George B.Parks (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1963)

15 William Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Agostino Lombardo, (Milano, Feltrinelli, 1996) 7

the main political purposes of a civic myth: to generate unity and to stifle dissent. Thus,

one of the reasons why Venice has such a great longevity is because of its political unity;

many historians confirm this point by making a comparison between Rome and Venice in

order to explain that, for example, the victories and accomplishment of Romans were

made by single individuals but, as Botero claims ‘[…] one says that the Venetians have

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done this or that, not this or that individual.’

An example of Venice the Wise and Venice the Just can be found in Othello Act 1, Scene

2, when Othello and Desdemona defend themselves from Brabantio’s accusation and tell

their story in front of the Doge. In this scene there are elements of accusation, but it is

not a real trial, like the one in The Merchant of Venice; it looks like it, but it turns out to

be a political investiture of Othello. This scene is a clear dramatization of Venice the Just:

Brabantio argues to the Duke and the senators that his daughter Desdemona must have

been bound to the Moor only by a magic spell. Brabantio is in the positi