Shylock, the Roman: Honor and Irony in The Merchant of Venice

"Shylock, the Roman: Honor and Irony in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice" proposes an entirely unexpected new meaning for one of Shakespeare’s best-known plays. In drilling deeply into a single play, it illuminates other Shakespeare plays and, more broadly, provides insight into the logic of Shakespeare’s artistry and point of view as a dramatist.
Shylock, the Roman takes an approach to The Merchant of Venice that has no precedent: it proposes that the Renaissance ethos of ancient Roman honor better defines the play’s moral point of view than the ostensibly obvious moral standard of Christian love and mercy—the moral standard that has defined a basic paradigm for Merchant of Venice interpretation for 400 years. The play is shown to be more about the deceptiveness of superficial appearance than about moral issues pertaining to Christian morality. This theme is clearly and repeatedly articulated throughout the play, which proves illuminating not only to one play but to Shakespeare's work generally.