Professor James Shapiro of the Columbia University English Department addressed an audience of about 50 students and faculty gathered in Rocky 2 during his lecture on "The Merchant of Venice" and Jewish-English literary history, entitled "Jessica: The Jew's Daughter."
A central subplot to Shakespeare's romantic comedy "The Merchant of Venice" concerns Jessica, who betrays her father, the antagonist Jewish character Shylock, to run away and marry the Christian Lorenzo.
Introduced by Dartmouth Professor Susannah Heschel, chair of the religion department, the lecture began by the claim that he intended this as a sort of addendum to his previous literary effort on "The Merchant of Venice," as an effort to appease the critics of "Shakespeare and the Jews."
"What happens to Jessica," Shapiro asked, "amidst the joy at the end of 'The Merchant of Venice,' one of Shakespeare's most complicated comedies?"
Shapiro proceeded to elaborate on the history of the name Jessica and the role of Jews in Shakespearean English literature.
In one anecdote, Shapiro demonstrated the similarities between the Jessica character and a "long-standing English literary tradition of a beautiful Jewish daughter ... and [her] hidden threat."
He recounted a folktale found in James Joyce's "Ulysses" and in several English sources which describes a seductive young Jewish woman who lures an unsuspecting Christian boy to her chambers where she murders him. This tale and others like it helped develop stereotypes of young Jewish women, stereotypes which Shapiro emphasized were used by Shakespeare in his play.
Another comment during the lecture drew titters from the audience when Shapiro segued into a commentary on the state of marital relations between Christians and Jews.
"Can this marriage be saved?" he asked, referring to the union between Lorenzo and Jessica. This led to a discourse on the nature of Judaism, whether a convert to Christianity or Judaism retains his or her original religion and how a relation's religion affects a family.
One of the most interesting and seldom-discussed aspects of "The Merchant of Venice" was revealed when Shapiro lectured on the racial discrimination and the association of Judaism with dark skin. Shakespeare compares Shylock and Jessica to "jet and ivory" repectively. Shapiro commented that critics and scholars have long been too comfortable in ignoring this detail. Shapiro went so far as to "suggest that there's some kind of conspiracy to block out the darker side of Jessica."
The audience -- especially the students -- generally enjoyed the lecture.
"For those who had read his book, the lecture was very useful," commented Kristina Mendicino '04. "He elaborated on elements he mentioned in his book but did not really cover."
Shapiro has taught as a Fulbright lecturer at Bar Ilan and Tel Aviv Universities and earned the Bainton Prize for best book on sixteenth-century literature. At Columbia, he has earned distinction as a Shakespearean specialist, publishing several books on the playwright and his contemporaries, including "Shakespeare and the Jews."
Notable in the audience was the entire Jewish Studies 40 class, "'The Merchant of Venice': The Jew in the Christian Imagination."
