Indian beauty and foreign spirits: the golden casket in the merchant of Venice

dc.contributor.authorMackenzie, C.
dc.date.issued2015
dc.descriptionLink to a related website: http://real.mtak.hu/37416/1/062.2015.68.4.6.pdf, Open Access via Unpaywall
dc.description.abstractThe 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.
dc.identifier.citationActa Orientalia, 2015; 68(4):467-474
dc.identifier.doi10.1556/062.2015.68.4.6
dc.identifier.issn0001-6446
dc.identifier.issn1588-2667
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/11541.2/118958
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherAkademiai Kiado Rt
dc.rightsCopyright 2015 Akadémiai Kiadó
dc.source.urihttp://real.mtak.hu/37416/1/062.2015.68.4.6.pdf
dc.subjectBassanio
dc.subjectcaskets
dc.subjectfortune
dc.subjectgold
dc.subjecticonography
dc.subjectMorocco
dc.subjectPortia
dc.subjectshakespeare
dc.titleIndian beauty and foreign spirits: the golden casket in the merchant of Venice
dc.typeJournal article
pubs.publication-statusPublished
ror.mmsid9916038574701831

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