Grady, Kyle. "Racial divides in The Merchant of Venice." Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/racial-divides-in-the-merchant-of-venice. [Date accessed].
Racial divides in The Merchant of Venice
A demonstration to students of how early modern attention to race often appears at the margins.
The Merchant of Venice is an ideal play to begin showing students how the early modern English attention to difference plays out in the margins. It is clear in the text that the English sensibility in the early modern era is one already attentive to identities that don’t fit neatly into discreetly constructed categories and one that sees the reinscription of those divides as important to both its domestic organization and to its colonial ambitions. In Shakespeare’s Venice, managing those categories—and how people fit into them—appears especially important for ensuring that its legal, economic, and social systems maintain and reproduce a particular hierarchy, especially in an increasingly intercultural context.
Further learning
Recommended
Sexualization of Islam in Turk plays
“Turk plays” used race, religion, and sexuality to construct and enforce difference portraying Muslims, Jews, and Black people as sexually deviant or unnatural. Studying these texts reveals how early modern depictions of sexuality and race intersected.
Slavery, sugar, and the value of Shakespeare
Emma Smith traces the linage of Richard Oswald's 18th-century library to reveal how so-called rare books became totems of class status. Oswald's library is an example of how enslavement of African people by the British is woven into the fabric of book history and how value is construced.
