Merchant of Venice Essay: The Importance of the Law -- Merchant of Ven

The Importance of the jurisprudence in The Merchant of Venice The link between Shakespe be and the justness is non upstart scholars have long realized that the legal discourse send away submit to a better understanding of Shakespeares works. Yet, that the converse is also true the involve of Shakespeare can lead to a deeper understanding of the fundamental nature of jurisprudence. A play like The Merchant of Venice has a great deal to assign in the course of such a reading. The action of the play is refer with contract equity, but issues of standing, moiety, precedent, and conveyance are also raised. At the closely fundamental level, though, the trial scene in Act IV illustrates the action between equity and the strict construction of the law. Equity, in the legal sense, is umpire according to principles of fairness and not strictly according to formulated law (Gilbert 103). This definition, while easily understandable, presents us with a problematic - even flagitio us - structure of opposition. Law and fairness are set at organic ends of some continuum of umpire, and are exclusive. The definition implies that one can have justice according to fairness, or justice according to formulated law. Yet if law is not inherently fair, if there is need for a concept of equity, how can the law be said to be fulfilling its purpose? And if fairness is not to be found within the confines of formulated law, from whence does it be? This is not a new argument, of course the conflict between law and equity was recognized even in medieval England. From earliest childhood, we are indoctrinated with a sense of justice, of fairness, of right and wrong. Every schoolyard echoes with cries of No fair deception We seem to know inst... ...s of Shakespeare. 4th ed. New York Longman-Addison Wesley Longman, 1997. Gilbert Law Dictionary. bread Harcourt Brace, 1997. Homer. The Iliad. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York Penguin, 1990. Keeton, George W. Shakespeares effect ive and Political Background. New York Barnes & Noble, 1967. Kornstein, Daniel J. Kill All the Lawyers? Shakespeares ratified Appeal. Princeton Princeton UP, 1994. The Merchant of Venice. British Broadcasting Corp. Prod. Jonathan Miller. Dir. Jack Gold. Time-Life Video, 1980. Shakespeare, William. The Merchant of Venice. Bevington 178-215. ---. The Merry Wives of Windsor. Bevington 252-87. Ward, Ian. Shakespeare and the Legal Imagination. Law in Context. London Butterworths, 1999. White, Edward J. Commentaries on the Law in Shakespeare. St. Louis F.H. doubting Thomas Law Book Co., 1911.