Word: shylocking
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...these organic microcosms, the Western concept of the individual, upholding and upheld by a written law, has no meaning at all; right action is a meld of custom and propriety demonstrated by the behavior of the sage. Written contracts are usually mere pieces of paper. "No Chinese would understand Shylock's claim to a pound of flesh in The Merchant of Venice," says Harvard Law Professor Jerome Cohen. "The important thing is human relations. You imply a lack of trust when you allow for disputes in contracts." If disputes arise, they are settled through face-to-face negotiations...
...fact that Rosenberg has published at least as much as any of the three assistant professors of English given tenure this year lends a touch of irony to the popular "publish or perish" assumption out appointments. In 1960 he published from Shylock to Svengali," on Jewish stereotypes in English fiction, to excellent views here and in England. Random cause is publishing his study of the historical novel next year...
...prick me, do I not bleed?" asked Shakespearean Richard Burton, 38, paraphrasing Shylock. Burton does, frighteningly, for as he explained in Manhattan last week, he has suffered all his life from a mild form of "bleeder's disease," or hemophilia. Recently recruited by the National Hemophilia Foundation, he announced the formation of a Richard Burton Hemophilia Fund, with Wife Liz as chairman, to aid research on the disease...
...learned Portia, disguised as a lawyer defending Antonio, offers a remedy in her "quality of mercy" speech-the unfolding principle of equity, which the English courts were more and more applying in Shakespeare's day to ease cases of special hardship. As Shylock stands over Antonio, knife in hand, Portia says...
...that, Shakespeare's audiences must have roared approval. And again when Shylock, an alien, is shown to be subject to another Venetian law: that an alien attempting a citizen's life must forfeit half his goods to the state, half to the victim. The play was boffo in a day when every Englishman had to be his own lawyer to survive, and if it seems dated now, it is still perhaps the most concise summary of justice triumphant over dry legalism that English literature has yet produced...