'Like parrots at a bagpiper': The Polarities of Exchange in The Merchant of Venice

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'Like parrots at a bagpiper': The Polarities ofExchange in The Merchant of Venice Lisa Hopkins In The Merchant of Venice, imagery drawn from the Old World meets imagery drawn from the N e w against a backdrop of exotic and cosmopolitan characters and allusions which makes the audience powerfully aware of the spread of global trade and of the cultural and economic exchanges it facilitates. The idea of exchange also features prominently on another level, too, since many of the principal personages are characterised partly or largely by their attitudes to the idea of exchange; in particular, Shylock and Portia represent diametrically opposed views on the subject, attention to which serves to make it much clearer why it is Portia in particular who must become Shylock's antagonist and nemesis. They can also be seen as representatives of the different attitudes to exchange in narrative terms of the two very different cultural traditions inscribed in their names, with Shylock standing for the Judaeo-Christian heritage of the typologically-based tradition of biblical exegesis which seeks parallels and correspondences, and Portia representing the classical traditions of tragedy and epic which each privilege a unique telos. This emphasis on exchange is of course appropriate to comedy, where substitution, in forms ranging from the localised one of disguise to the wider idea of one generation giving place to another, is so often a fundamental structural principle. However, characters' own attitudes to the process are rarely expressed, and certainly not so comprehensively and systematically as here, and the presence of the pattern thus seems to allow for 106 Lisa Hopkins the conducting of almost a debate about their o w n ability to flourish in a comic structure. The results of that debate are obvious: Portia wins, and Shylock loses, with the other characters scrambling to align themselves neatly behind Portia. The magnitude of Shylock's loss has, not unreasonably, so m u c h disturbed critics that m a n y have seen The Merchant of Venice as belonging not with the earlier, 'festive' comedies but with the problem plays, in which the resolutions are flawed and provisional rather than providing a sense of harmony and reconciliation. For arguments that the play is essentially harmonious, see for instance William Ker Shakespeare's Promises (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), pp. 945 , and Lawrence Danson, The Harmonies ofThe Merchant of Venice (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), pp. 170-1, Joseph Pequigney, 'The Two Antonios and Same-Sex Love in Twelfth Night and The Merchant of Venice', ELR 22 (1992), 201-21, Joan Ozark Holmer, The Merchant of Venice: Choice, Hazard and Consequence (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995), Susan McLean, 'Prodigal Sons and Daughters: Transgression and Forgiveness in 77ie Merchant of Venice', Papers on Language and Literature 32:1 (1996) pp. 45-62; John E. Cunningham, 'Which is the Merchant here?', in The Merchant ofVenice Longman Critical Essays, edited by Linda Cookson and Bryan Loughrey (London: Longman, 1995), pp. 9-18; and, of course, C. L. Barber, Shakespeare's Festive Comedy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959), especially pp. 186-7. Cynthia Lewis, however, calls it 'a tragicomedy until the end and even after the end' (Particular Saints Shakespeare's Four Antonios, Their Contexts, and Their Plays [Newark: University o Delaware Press, 1997], pp. 51-87, p. 86), and Kiernan Ryan argues that 'thefifth-actclosure in alleged romantic harmony is actually fraught with sinister insinuations' ('Re-reading The Merchant ofVenice', in Shakespeare, 2nd edition; reprinted in The Merchant ofVenic edited by Martin Coyle [Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998], p. 41), while Marc Berley argues that '[a] harmonious resolution "completely without irony" requires the harmonious assimilation ofJessica in Belmont; and Jessica is excluded from the celebration' (Jessica's Belmont Blues: Music and Merriment in The Merchant of Venice', in Opening the Borders Inclusivity in Early Modern Studies, edited by Peter C. Herman [Newark: University o Delaware Press, 1999], pp. 185-205, p. 185). Similarly, David Pollard argues that 'Venice and Belmont are overlapping "doubles," with the distasteful machinations of the former appearing as not altogether foreign to the goings-on its "green" counterpart' ('The Patriarchal Uncanny in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice', The Upstart Crow 17 [1997], pp...