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References
Shakespeare Text:The Complete Works of Shakespeare, ed. David Bevington (Glenview, Illinois: Scot, Foreman, 1980).
Cf. S. Schoenbaum, “Chapter 4. Rise and Fall”, inWilliam Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 30–44.
Cf.ibid., 94–184.
Cf.Complete Works, supra n.1, at 96.
Ibid. 191.
Bill of Complaint (1588/9) Coram Rege Rolls Term. Mich. 31–32 Eliz. [Q.B. 27/1311, rot. 516]. Cf. James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps,Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare (London: Longmans, 1887), II, 11–3, and E. K. Chambers,William Shakespeare (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930), II. 35–41, where the text is reprinted; however Chambers deletes the various attorneys hired by the parties.
Ellesmere to James and his Council as quoted in Mark Edwin Andrews,Law Versus Equity, in “The Merchant of Venice”, (Boulder: University of Colorado Press; 1965), 41; also Godfrey Davies,The Early Stuarts, 1603–1660 (Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1959), 88.
For the current difficulties by legal historians in determining how to use these relevant parallels, see the summary of the problem by Richard A. Posner,Law and Literature (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), 90–99, particularly 93, 32n. and 96, 37n. James would have been interested in these legal conflicts with the later (Glanvill v.Courtney 1616) Lord Ellesmere and Sir Edward Coke after 1605, when he saw the play in private audience twice. However for these earlier parallels we must not forget that Shakespeare was writingMerchant around 1594. Shakespeare's case appeared before both jurisdictions (Q.B. 1588–1590; Chancery 1597–1599). Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Harlan F. Stone said, “Often in listening toThe Merchant of Venice, it has occurred to me that Shakespeare knew the essentials of the contemporary conflict between law and equity.” Andrews,op. cit., ix.
Cited in Wilbur Dunkel,William Lambarde, Elizabethan Jurist 1536–1601 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1965), 177–178.
Sir George Cary (Carew),Reports or Causes in Chancery (London: 1650).
A recent discussion of intent problems in textual legal analysis is found in Joseph Vining, “Generalization in Interpretive Theory”, inRepresentations 30 (Spring 1990), 1–12 (University of California Press).
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Knight, W.N. Shakespeare's court case. Law Critique 2, 103–112 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01128440
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01128440