ABSTRACT
Both Shylock and Antonio undergo nomadic pilgrimage in which the stasis of their respective points of departure is put to motion through tests and experiments, to challenge through their subjectivity received ideas traditionally attached to them in the political or religious contexts of the play. Shylock, less of an individualist than Marlowe’s Barabas, is well aware of this, and while far from founding a Gramschian political party, he intends to make use of nationhood in another, more Machiavellian in nature. Shylock takes it from there, but the master stroke in his subversive transformation of the national narrative is only fully revealed in the subtle and creative manner in which he conducts his law suit in the Venetian court. Shylock’s covert claim for Venetian nationhood has solid roots in Venice’s practice of political economy, in the eagerness of merchants to participate and control the state’s decision-making, “especially if government was run as a corporation of merchant proto-capitalists”.
