Portia: Shakespeare's Matlock?

Abstract

Much has been written about Shakespeare's legal prowess or lack of it in The Merchant of Venice.* However intrinsically interesting these discourses are and a good many of them are extremely interesting I feel compelled to argue that almost all of it is irrelevant. Shakespeare was, first and foremost, a dramatist who made his fortune at the box office. His plays were intended to be "get pennies," sure to attract good audiences that would pay their penny at the gate and sometimes another penny for a seat in the gallery. His plays enjoyed popularity, if we can judge by the number that were published by 1600 with or without his authorization, and by such testimonials and other evidence that have come down to us. His plays were popular in the public theaters and at court, both with the Queen in the sixteenth century and with the King in the seventeenth. With good reason, James I became the patron of Shakespeare's company, thereafter known as the King's Men, soon after he ascended the English throne in 1603. Scholars love to speculate about Shakespeare's activities during his so-called "lost years" the decade between the time of his marriage to Anne Hathaway and the birth of his children, and the first mention of his presence in London as an actor and playwright in 1592. Some believe he was a schoolmaster; others, that he was a soldier, or a sailor. Or now we come to it a law clerk. Certainly his plays are studded with legal terminology as well as allusions to classical authors, seafaring terms, and soldier's lore. But the fact remains that we have no facts. We simply do not know what Shakespeare did during those "lost years." Not that I think it matters. Whatever he did, everything we know about him and his plays indicates that he had an uncommon ability to absorb ideas, stories, language, and events, and to transform them through the alembic of his imagination into the greatest poetic drama the world has known. I say all this, which probably sounds like a recital of truisms, because I want to focus on the dramatic use of legal materials in The Merchant and avoid what could be a fruitless argument over the validity of Shylock's contract with Antonio, or the "trick" Portia uses later to entrap her victim, or other legal and quasi-legal issues. As