The Merchant of Venice and the Politics of Commerce

Belmont serves as a locale characterized by all the capitalist abuses normally attributed to Venice. Granted, Belmont does appear a neutral greenworld, especially when juxtaposed against Venice. ¹ Belmont’s gardens, music, liberality, and levity indeed suggest a fertile environment that captivates characters, audience, and readers. Consequently many critics have underscored Belmont as “a fairy-tale”; “one of those enchanted places where time stands still” (Salingar 177; Auden 234). Nevertheless, this far-too-obvious “greenery” must not continue to mislead this play’s critics. Approaching Shakespeare, a healthy dose of skepticism is required. That is, in this play Shakespeare configures the passive greenworld into a dynamic territory where he strategically aligns, resists, and/or challenges divergent socioeconomic and political assumptions that the early modern hegemony traditionally espoused and put into play. Simply put, Belmont is not “the stuff of fairy tales” (Levin 16–17), or the locus amoenus that wholeheartedly welcomes strangers, provides a safe environment for runaways, and supplies untold sums of ducats to virtual strangers, in addition to “resolv[ing] the story of Venice” (Holmer 46). Moreover, Portia does not operate as a greenworld dea ex machina. Rather, Belmont functions as a borderland contact zone, in all its green world finery. ²