SOURCE: "Fie Upon Your Law!," in Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature, Vol. V, No. 1, Spring, 1993, pp. 35-56.

In the following essay, Kornstein evaluates The Merchant of Venice as a legal parable that weighs the conflict between rigid and equitable interpretations of law.

The Merchant of Venice is surely the Shakespearean play most closely linked in the popular mind with law. The crucial trial scene sears the legal and popular conscience like nothing else in Shakespeare. Over the centuries, The Merchant of Venice has spawned more commentary by lawyers than any other Shakespeare play. Books and articles in large number have flowed from the busy pens of attorneys and others seeking to understand and explain the legal meaning of this play. And yet for all that has been previously written by lawyers about the play, there is still more to be said.

Commentary on the legal aspects of...