“A creature that did bear the shape of man”: hybridity and gender in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice,

Abstract

Scylla, a mermaid and a Gorgon, three hybrids inherited from classical antiquity, are respectively associated with Shylock, Angelo and Antony in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Antony and Cleopatra and Measure for Measure. The association of these creatures with the three male characters is quite innovative since they were mostly depicted as female and often conjured up to draw a nightmarish portrait of femininity and of its dangers in the early modern period. This paper therefore aims to show how the metaphorical hybridity of the Shakespearean characters not only blurs the species divide but also the gender divide in order to lay bare the precariousness of the early modern male/female categories.