The Nature of Justice in The Faerie Queen and The Merchant of Venice
The tension implied in the insistence to bind the definitions of justice, mercy, and equity in Elizabethan texts suggests that behind their representation there is more at stake than a conceptual problem. Elizabethan conceptions of ideal justice politicize their representations in order to justify the prevailing monarchy. Spenser and Shakespeare offer their own version of the nature of justice through female characters, Mercilla in Book V of The Faerie Queen and Portia in The Merchant of Venice. However the textualization of these categories works differently. For Spenser, justice relates itself to a divine ordering of the world, which connects his work with Elizabeth I, God's instrument on Earth. In the case of MV, law in the form of contracts and bonds, substitutes any divine mediation in the legal process, thus displaying, even though briefly, the artificial nature of justice.
Various treaties of the sixteenth century distinguish between justice, equity and mercy or clemency. James E. Phillips summarizes the definitons of these concepts at the time: "Justice is the absolute, measure for measure equation of exact reward and punishment according to the letter of the law, Equity is the taking into account of the individual circumstances in each case and mercy or Clemency is the human and divine impulse to forgive." (Phillips, 105) In the case of the monarch, he/she could only show mercy if the offence directly affected his/her person and once the offender confessed and pleaded for mercy.
Mercilla and Portia problematize the boundaries of these definitions. In the Proem to Book V of The Faerie Queen Spenser establishes his defi...
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...rs in the play) to function as the spokesperson for the law suggests that rather than an attack on the female sex, The Merchant of Venice subtly questions patriarchal assumptions about women.
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Stump, Donald V. "Isis versus Mercilla: The Aleegorical Shrines in Spenser's Legend of Justice." Spenser Studies , (1982), 3, 87-98.
The Effectiveness of the House of Commons as a Check on the Executive What is meant by the effectiveness of the commons check on the executive is basically, how able is the house of commons to prevent the Government (executive) from getting its own way or forcing its will upon the people of Britain. In theory the commons level of effectiveness is constant as each Member of Parliament has an opinion on every bill or motion that is put forward that is based on conscience. This is not practicable, however, as the party system and the party whips change this. The whips tell MPs which way to vote and can impose sanctions upon those MPs who rebel against the government.
Parliamentary sovereignty, a core principle of the UK's constitution, essentially states that the Parliament is the ultimate legal authority, which possesses the power to create, modify or end any law. The judiciary cannot question its legislative competence, and a Parliament is not bound by former legislative provisions of earlier Parliaments. The ‘rule of law’ on the other hand, is a constitutional doctrine which primarily governs the operation of the legal system and the manner in which the powers of the state are exercised. However, since the Parliament is capable of making any law whatsoever, the concept of the rule of law poses a contradiction to the principle of parliamentary supremacy, entailing that Parliament is not bound by the Rule of Law, and it can exercise power arbitrarily.
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West, Rebecca. “A Court and World Infected by the Disease of Corruption.” Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardo. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. from The Court and the Castle. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1957.
Now I am going to show five typical samples below to be in favor of
In Shakespeare controversial play, The Merchant of Venice, the character, Antonio calls this world "a stage where every man must play a part". He really cannot imagine that it will be a woman that will play the leading role on his "sad" stage. If not for a woman, Antonio would have found himself as a hunk of flesh in Shylock's trophy room. Portia, whose "little body is a-weary of this great world," uses her intelligence, quick thinking and fortitude to save the love of her own love. She also provides for the love of Jessica and Lorenzo, and let us not forget to mention her spiel on mercy and love at the onset of the trial. My question is why.
In the 16th century, women and men were defined as having specific and contrasting roles within society. Men were defined as being powerful and dominant while women were defined as being submissive and meek. These ideals can be seen across cultures and throughout time. With these definitions of gender roles in place, the text suggests that gender is a social construct therefore qualities of femininity and masculinity are subjective. This is shown when Portia cross dresses as the lawyer Balthazar (IV) and when the truths of the rings are discovered by the two women (V). The strong female characters in the play exemplify that women are not confined to their social construct as they manipulate the male characters. During the 16th century only
The Advantages of the UK Having a Constitutional Monarchy As we enter the 21st century, the discussion about the existence of constitutional monarchy has become more and more commonplace. The ¡®constitutional monarchy¡¯ means the monarch's powers are largely exercised by the elected government. The Queen is Head of State which means she symbolizes the ultimate sovereignty of the state and represents Britain in an official capacity when foreign Heads of state visit the UK. Different people hold quite different point of views on this topic, however I, personally, would argue that the advantages of the UK having a constitutional monarchy are much greater than its disadvantages and the monarchy should not be fully abolished.
Boss, Judith E. "The Golden Age, Cockaigne, and Utopia in The Faerie Queene and The Temepest." Georgia Review 26 (1972) 145-55.
Faerie Queene, the narrative voice on matters of law is predictably placed in a position of
When most people think of justice, it commonly brings forward the words positivity, fairness, law, order, and other familiar words. However, in the Merchant of Venice, this is not the case. Justice is used negatively in a court case that reverses from putting Antonio, the convicted Christian merchant, on trial to Shylock, the Jewish money loaner asking for justice, to be put on trial. In the play, both mercy and justice are rejected because of the obvious influential bias that the character’s actions portray.
In both Merchant of Venice and The Tempest, Shakespeare proposes ideas of justice and mercy that hold true in both plays. In order to see if the actions taken were just and/or merciful, definitions of these words must be set up. If we were to assume that Shakespeare's definition of mercy was what Portia espoused in act four, scene one, specifically lines 205 - 206, the definition of mercy must be viewed in a biblical sense. Thus, in order to judge if something is merciful, one must look to see if it fulfills the qualifications of mercy in the New Testament. However, the idea of justice is quite different, for my definition of justice, I will turn to Charles Mill's definition, for, in the plays it applies the most. Mill's espoused that justice for the Europeans meant "just us," implying different standards for white Christians that for any other race or religion. Now that we have firm definitions on what mercy and justice are in the context of Shakespeare's time, it is possible to see how each of these played a role in these ...
Villeponteaux, Mary. “Displacing Feminine Authority in The Faerie Queene.” Studies in English Literature 35:1 (1995) Winter 1995: 53-68.
Morality: mercy wins over justice, and yet there is a strong sense of justice having been done. Symbolically accomplished by the Duke (justice) taking on the habit of "a true friar" (mercy but with sense of justice) starting with I.iii.48.
William Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” is a drama that most scholars find difficult classifying. The play loosely focuses upon Antonio who becomes the subject of a loan that almost costs him his life due to his belittling and poor treatment of Shylock, who as a Jew has received many forms of prejudice from Christians. Despite this fact Antonio is relieved from the loan. Bassino is freed from his prior debts and gets to marry Portia, Portia weds the man that she desires, and four other characters get married. While these moments surely made the play happy and enjoyable, the looming threat of Antonio losing everything because he ended up defaulting on the loan causes the audience to worry and fear the outcome of what may happen. If not for Shakespeare’s usage of comic relief to support the happy ending it would be even more difficult to classify this play. Although there is plenty of happy moments and comic relief the treatment of Jews and Shylock in particular also causes some people to view “The Merchant of Venice” as a tragedy. While others yet view the drama as a problem play, “where moral dilemmas or social problems were explored through one central player”. William Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” is best classified as a comedy due to comedies definition, the rise of sympathetic characters, the use of comic relief to decrease the dark tense moments, and the inability to properly classify the play as a tragedy.