ABSTRACT
Antonio’s potential epiphany happens when Shylock says during the trial scene, “let the Christian go” (4.1.316). Antonio has been focusing his agency on his potential death or ‘crucifixion’. With Shylock’s downfall, Antonio is cut off from his dramatized self-sacrifice. He experiences a shock as well as a sensual and spiritual peak, or a climactic moment. Antonio projects a path of spiritual and erotic desire that is frustrated but which leaves a trace of what fulfillment might be. This chapter illuminates Antonio’s epiphany through Jewish mysticism, then tracks Antonio dramatically within the plot. Antonio’s repression, partly caused by his homoerotic desires, not only expresses itself in his vile antisemitism but strangely points to his transformative potentiality. Finally, Christian crucifixion does not happen for Antonio, so his agency must drive forward beyond Christian constructs. Since his unethical demand that Shylock convert obviously depends on the same religious construct that could not offer him (Antonio) satisfaction, Antonio’s epiphany remains only potential and his epiphanic drive remains active in the “aesthetic space” after the play.
