Indian beauty and foreign spirits: the golden casket in the merchant of Venice
Date
2015
Authors
Mackenzie, C.
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Journal article
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Acta Orientalia, 2015; 68(4):467-474
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Abstract
The casket scenes in The Merchant of Venice are powerful arbiters of success and failure. The casket challenge is loaded with culturally-specific signifiers which favour local contenders. Bassanio rejects the gold casket because he is aware that European moral iconographies repudiate earthly wealth (though, ironically, Bassanio is a poor illustration of the principle). The Prince of Morocco, by contrast, understandably supposes gold to be an appropriate metaphor for love - gold was, after all, the prima materia of North Africa. Morocco is on every level more worthy than Bassanio but fails because he chooses through foreign eyes.
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Link to a related website: http://real.mtak.hu/37416/1/062.2015.68.4.6.pdf, Open Access via Unpaywall
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Copyright 2015 Akadémiai Kiadó