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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 9 page paper discussing The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare and The Fable of the Bees by Bernard de Mandeville. The paper shows how the development of capitalism has had roots in distinctly non-capitalist values. No sources except books.
Page Count:
9 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_Venice.doc
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
values. This paper will look at two works, Shakespeares The Merchant of Venice, written at the end of the sixteenth century, and Bernard de Mandevilles Fable of the Bees, written
a little more than a hundred years later, and examines how these authors reflect the roots of capitalism in their very different works. Despite the fact that The Merchant of
Venice is patently about money -- and some variant of "money", "lottery", "risk", or "fortune" is mentioned on nearly every page -- it is also a play about human relationships.
Appearances are not what they seem, Shakespeare tells us, and people are not objects to be hoarded, won, or lost-they are people. This message is repeated over and over in
a number of subplots, the most significant of these being the "lottery" of the silver, gold, and leaden caskets; the trading of Antonios flesh for money; and the elopement of
Shylocks daughter Jessica with the Venetian, Lorenzo. As this is a very short paper, we will only consider those themes having to do with Shylock and Jessica, and determine in
what way Shakespeare demonstrates that the values imparted by money are false ones. First, however, it would be helpful to provide a little background about the place of the Jewish
moneylender in Venetian society. During the Middle Ages and well into the Renaissance, Venice was one of Europes chief centers of banking and commerce. Due to the almost fabulous wealth
of its merchant class, Venice was never at any time under feudalism; the city had actually purchased its own independence from the Byzantine wing of the Roman Empire nearly half
a millennium before. Their reasons for doing so had as much to do with political as economic freedom; only as free citizens, unbound to Rome in any context save, eventually,
...