Parti-Coloured Parables

Chapter 2 examines a key biblical intertext for Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice that Shylock references act 1, scene 3 of the play. Known as ‘the Genesis Jacob cycle,’ chapters 12-50 of the biblical Book of Genesis chronicle the exploits of the patriarch Jacob, including his rivalry with his twin brother Esau; the deception of his blind father Isaac with the aid of his mother; and the parable of the parti-coloured lambs. This chapter examines the Judaic interpretive legacy surrounding these stories, and argues that Shylock’s citation of episodes from the Jacob cycle models a form of midrash, a distinctively Judaic mode of scriptural exegesis. This chapter develops the argument that Shylock’s distinctively Judaic mode of explicating and using these stories offers a notable counterpoint to the Christian interpretations of these same scenes, interpretations voiced by Antonio and reiterated by scholars, who frequently align it with the archetypal perspective of the play or its author. This chapter asks how reading Shylock’s character instead through his own self-proclaimed identification with the Jewish Jacob positions readers of this play to see and understand Shylock differently from how he has been read by Antonio and a wide variety of the play’s critics.