True Interest and the Affections: The Dangers of Lawful Lending in The Merchant of Venice

This essay reads the often overlooked distinction between interest and usury back into The Merchant of Venice, revealing the play's focus on the dangers of Christian lending practices. True interest, a lawful compensation for default, derived legitimacy from its conceptual basis in idealized Christian affections: amity, trust, and mercy. Shylock adopts this Christian model of "kind" lending in his bond with Antonio as a means for lawful revenge. In his alternative penalty of a pound of flesh, Shylock's bond gestures metonymically to the practice of imprisoning the debtor's body when interest could not be collected. Interest's legitimating affections provide a lawful conveyance and screen for the destructive passions that motivate lending in the play: Shylock's vengeance and Antonio's prodigal self-sacrifice. Portia's pragmatic revision of interest as self-love ironically counters the destructive passions lurking beneath Christian love and true interest.