Grady, Kyle. "Racial divides in The Merchant of Venice." Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/racial-divides-in-the-merchant-of-venice. [Date accessed].

Racial divides in The Merchant of Venice

A demonstration to students of how early modern attention to race often appears at the margins.

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Kyle Grady
University of California, Irvine

The Merchant of Venice is an ideal play to begin showing students how the early modern English attention to difference plays out in the margins. It is clear in the text that the English sensibility in the early modern era is one already attentive to identities that don’t fit neatly into discreetly constructed categories and one that sees the reinscription of those divides as important to both its domestic organization and to its colonial ambitions. In Shakespeare’s Venice, managing those categories—and how people fit into them—appears especially important for ensuring that its legal, economic, and social systems maintain and reproduce a particular hierarchy, especially in an increasingly intercultural context.

Further learning

Essay

Social organization in The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice is a key text for demonstrating that race was inextricable from early modern considerations of societal organization.

Kyle Grady
Activity

Journaling through questions of race

The journal is a place where students can engage in dialogue with themselves. This kind of reflection helps students track how their understandings of race develop over time.

Kyle Grady

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