Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyse William Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice and the possible implications it might have for the European migrant crisis and the current state of the European public discourse with regard to our shared identity. The uneasy search for this common European identity and the challenge of the migrant crisis, which shows the strained basis on which any dialogue between Europeans and the Other is built, is related to Shakespeare’s play. Merchant of Venice has been chosen because it best showcases Shakespeare’s attentive description of the early modern European society and the foundations on which Europe stands today with all the inequality and discrimination that was a part of this society.

The main method used for this analysis was close reading of Merchant of Venice and of Jacques Derrida’s Of Hospitality that provides the theoretical framework for this work. Derrida’s understanding of the law and hospitality, as well as of the role of the Foreigner guides the inquiry into the uneasy relationship between Shakespeare’s Shylock and his Christian counterparts. This relationship is described both in the socio-historical context of early modern Europe, but also in terms of theatrical and dramatic analysis. The conclusion of this inquiry tries to isolate the problem of hospitality and the Other and places it in analogy with the European migrant crisis.

The paper describes the primary dynamic of the Judeo-Christian interaction in Shakespeare’s Venice and points to a possible conclusion that can be drawn from the tragic constellation of the broken pact of hospitality that leads to the ambivalent and deeply unnerving ending of the play. The same conclusion can be used as a blueprint for the current social and political situation in Europe. The lack of discussion and mutual deliberation can be seen both in the play and the present Europe and it is possible to search in both for the same causes and possible solutions to this problem.

Keywords: Shakespeare, Derrida, hospitality, Europe, migrant crisis

Souhrn

Účelem tohoto článku je analýza Kupce benátského od Williama Shakespeara a možných implikací, které tato hra může mít pro evropskou migrační krizi a současný stav evropského veřejného diskurzu týkajícího se naší sdílené identity.