Cultures of Conversion in The Merchant of Venice

Abstract

Shylock, the notorious Jewish moneylender in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (1596), has dominated critical reception of this comedy, his forced conversion to Christianity being a particularly controversial element. Significantly less attention, however, has been paid to Shylock’s daughter Jessica. Her voluntary Christianisation invites us to consider the concept of conversion in a broader discourse. This thesis will argue that a rich and complex network of conversional forms opens itself in The Merchant of Venice, and that these types of transition are connected by a common involvement in the concept of self-identity. By means of New Historicism as well as the renewed post-modern interest in this problematic concept, we can even say that The Merchant of Venice, perhaps more than other plays, is one of the most complex representations of the experience of identity of early modern individuals, individuals who found themselves situated in a dynamic field in which religious and political conflict, rising capitalism and notions of race and gender were involved in an analogous (though also confusing) process of crystallisation.