Of mountebanks, lovers and thieves: rhetoric and desire under two Venetian balconies

Abstract

This article centres on a confronted reading of two balcony/window scenes set in Venice The Merchant of Venice 2.6; Volpone 2.2 as a heuristic device for their mutual critical illumination. It draws on the expectations that surrounded the treatment of Venice in early modern English drama, in light of the fascination exerted by the city over the contemporary imagination, and hence on the homologies and emulation that its commercial power and civic fame attracted. Elements common to the two plays that are brought to bear on the proposed reading of the scenes in question include the dynamics of material acquisitiveness, erotic desire and transgressive behaviour. Such features are related to the social and scenic arrangement of the scenes, and the nexus of ascension/descent that they entail. Yet another common dimension to be explored in this confronted reading concerns the two scenes' metatheatrical import the elements of disguise and performance that the intervening characters adopt for these particular moments in the plays respective plots. Conversely, the proposed reading stresses a number of contrasting features that clearly distinguish the two scenes. Such features prominently include gender representations, and the extent to which the women (present, or alluded to) in the two scenes appear as respectively empowered and disempowered, perceptive or deceived. This will allow the two scenes to be perceived as fundamental for the delineation of the ethical grounding of The Merchant of Venice and Volpone, and for the terms under which they share the generic label of comedy.