On Forgiveness and Tolerance in Shakespeare's “Merchant of Venice”

Résumé (en anglais)

Arising from the very nature of the human being, tolerance is nowadays a more concept than it was in the past. The period between 1500-1700 witnessed a steady expansion of intolerance, marked by the executions for heresy or the hatred of the witches and Jews. In this period of religious unrest, Shakespeare wrote The Merchant of Venice, a play in which the trial between Antonio and Shylock reaches a dramatic climax signaled, on one hand, by the conflict between good (love, tolerance) and evil (hatred) and, on the other hand, the conflict between good (justice and law) and a greater good (mercy or the law of love and tolerance). The problems of the usury and free lending, enemy and friend, safety and risk, giving and forgiving, justice and mercy are all bound by the formulation of the flesh bond and its resolution in the trial. In The Merchant of Venice, particularly in the trial scene, Shakespeare created a refined ideology about tolerance and human choices. The values for which Shylock stands in the trial are associated with the New Testament's condemnation of ambition, covetousness and hypocrisy of the Pharisees. In contrast, Portia, the “puer senex” (the individual who combines in one person the best of youth and the best of age), plays “the devil's advocate” to teach Shylock, and us, the need for the grace of tolerance.