Merchant of Venice Essay: The Importance of the Law -- Merchant of Ven

The Importance of the Law in The Merchant of Venice The link between Shakespeargon and the rightfulness is non new scholars have long realized that the legal discourse can lead to a better understanding of Shakespeares works. Yet, that the converse is also true the pick out of Shakespeare can lead to a deeper understanding of the fundamental nature of law. A play like The Merchant of Venice has a great deal to offer in the course of such a reading. The action of the play is concerned with contract law, but issues of standing, moiety, precedent, and conveyance are also raised. At the most fundamental level, though, the psychometric test scene in Act IV illustrates the conflict between equity and the strict construction of the law. Equity, in the legal sense, is justice according to principles of pallidity and not strictly according to hypothesise law (Gilbert 103). This definition, while easily understandable, presents us with a problematic - even dangerous - structure of opp osition. Law and fairness are set at extreme ends of some continuum of justice, and are exclusive. The definition implies that one can have justice according to fairness, or justice according to formulated law. Yet if law is not inherently fair, if there is need for a concept of equity, how can the law be said to be fulfilling its purpose? And if fairness is not to be found within the confines of formulated law, from whence does it come? This is not a new argument, of course the conflict between law and equity was recognized even in medieval England. From earliest childhood, we are indoctrinated with a sense of justice, of fairness, of right and wrong. Every schoolyard echoes with cries of No fair cheating We front to know inst... ...s of Shakespeare. 4th ed. New York Longman-Addison Wesley Longman, 1997. Gilbert Law Dictionary. Chicago Harcourt Brace, 1997. Homer. The Iliad. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York Penguin, 1990. Keeton, George W. Shakespeares Legal and Political Backgro und. New York Barnes & Noble, 1967. Kornstein, Daniel J. Kill All the Lawyers? Shakespeares Legal Appeal. Princeton Princeton UP, 1994. The Merchant of Venice. British Broadcasting Corp. Prod. Jonathan Miller. Dir. Jack Gold. Time-Life Video, 1980. Shakespeare, William. The Merchant of Venice. Bevington 178-215. ---. The Merry Wives of Windsor. Bevington 252-87. Ward, Ian. Shakespeare and the Legal Imagination. Law in Context. London Butterworths, 1999. White, Edward J. Commentaries on the Law in Shakespeare. St. Louis F.H. Thomas Law Book Co., 1911.