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Genetics and "Race" in The Merchant of Venice
- Literature and Medicine
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 18, Number 2, Fall 1999
- pp. 155-172
- 10.1353/lm.1999.0018
- Article
- Additional Information
This essay argues that the influence of medical pseudo-science in a number of passages in The Merchant of Venice is much stronger than Shakespeare scholars generally acknowledge. Early modern notions of genetics in the play have a bearing on its conceptualization of "race," which, as the play shows, was a concept in the process of formation.