Shylock and Comedy

Stephen Greenblatt has an interesting piece on Merchant of Venice in the latest New York Review of Books .  His most important insight is the isolation of the comic moment in the play. Merchant is all about Shylock’s hatred, and in the court scene “Portia . . . has devised a test to see how much Shylock hates Antonio, and the answer is: not enough.  Not enough to go ahead and plunge the knife into his enemies heart, which he can do at this very moment, in the sight of all those who have mocked and despised him, provided he is willing to die for it.  Faced with the demand of such absolute hatred, Shylock flinches.”  The play is a comedy because “Shylock refuses to be a suicide bomber . . . at his . . . decisive moment, the Jew Shylock seems to hear the words of Deuteronomy: ‘Therefore choose life.’”

Greenblatt’s comparison of Shylock with Iago is illuminating: In Iago, Shakespeare gives us a suicide bomber, a man so thoroughly committed to his hatred that he doesn’t care if it consumes him too: “Hatred as intense and single-minded as his is finally indifferent to his very survival.”  Iago even refuses to give a reason for his hatred, and there is “no comic potential” after that: “In the face of a limitless, absolute, wordless hatred lodged in an ordinary human being, the bystanders are reduced to incoherence.”

Merchant is reassuring: Shylock converts, becomes one of us, and disappears into the crowd.  Iago gives no assurance: “honest Iago’s hatred has no limits, and he is already one of us.”