by Mufeed Al-Abdullah, Fuad Abdul Muttaleb, Maram M. Alabdullah
ABSTRACT
This article studies the spatial rhythm Shakespeare orchestrates in The Merchant of Venice (MV). Among the plays of Shakespeare, this play stands unique in its engineered rhythmic alternation of two antithetical locations of action, namely, Venice > Belmont, in this order. This structural rhythm emanating from the regular oscillation of events in the succession of scenes in the play results in an aesthetic dimension of Shakespeare’s work. Furthermore, the binary antithetical alternations of the two spheres convey moral and thematic significance loaded in the play. The study shows that Shakespeare plays the realistic, rigid, legal, financial, and prejudiced traits of Venice against the romantic, merciful, harmonious, generous, and friendly traits of Belmont. Thus, the alternation of space in the macrocosmic structure of the play creates a harmony that reflects a diagonal antithetical polarity of values attributed to the two cities. The alternations are supposedly repetitive and regular. However, the study shows that the departure from this regularity dictates an explanation. The playwright uses the violation of the regular spatial rhythm for a structural purpose. All spatially rhythmical scenes of Venice > Belmont are pertinent to the major plot woven around the Bassanio-Portia marriage, whereas irregular spatial rhythms are devoted to the minor plot of the Lorenzo-Jessica elopement and marriage. The article hopes to demonstrate that mapping spatial rhythm in MV contributes to the orchestration of the musical structure of the play and enhances the thematic significance embedded in the comedy. The attached figures and charts in the study are meant to demonstrate the micro- and macrocosmic structures of the individual acts and the play as a whole.
