From The Common Reader, February 6:
I am happy to bring you a guest post from the splendid Rohit Krishnan who writesStrange Loop Canon , all about Shakespeare and economics.
Shakespeare: Beneath the poetry lurks a mind uncannily alert to the costs and benefits of every human transaction.
Moral money
Shakespeare was a very good amateur economist, for which he gets very little credit. He had to be, to bring his stories to light, to be a true observer of human nature, since human nature is inextricably tied up with the economy. From business dealings in Venice to fights over land in Britain, Shakespeare looks at themes like wealth, poverty, trade, debt, and the moral issues around money.
Even marriages and friendships are intertwined with financial dealings. In The Merchant of Venice, the bond between Antonio and Bassanio is not just friendship but also involves monetary loans. Bassanio seeks to marry Portia not only for love but also for her wealth, to resolve his debts.
He wrote in Elizabethan England, a time rife with changing financial concerns, social hierarchies changing as there’s the rise of the middle class, the rise of mercantilism and trade, and changes in land rights. Shakespeare sets his stories in Venice, Rome, Britain, and beyond, but his abiding preoccupation is the universal pull of money and how it shapes life’s romances and tragedies.
All times seem tumultuous when you look at them closely enough, but with Shakespeare you can see the impacts of the changes being made manifest in the stories he tells.
Debt
The Merchant of Venice is famously about Antonio, a Christian merchant, and Shylock, a Jewish moneylender. It centers around the conflict between trade and lending money at interest—a big issue in Shakespeare’s England, where charging interest was often frowned upon....
....MORE
"William Shakespeare: gangster"
"...an indefatigable Canadian by the name of Leslie Hotson, best remembered today as the man who first stumbled across the records of the inquest into the highly mysterious murder of Shakespeare’s fellow playwright, Christopher Marlowe—uncovered a squalid tale of gangland rivalries in the theatrical underworld of Queen Elizabeth’s day.?Bard Finance, LLC: Dirty Deeds in the Wool Trade
Shady dealings of William Shakespeare’s father ‘helped to fund son’s plays’Whether 'tis Nobler In The Mind To Suffer The Slings and Arrows Of Econ Commentators
William Shakespeare: Annuity Beneficiary
And many more.
