The yoke of love

the long version

The theme of this book is disinheriting a father. Appropriating Shylock's Jewishness into the broader field of Otherness, and using The Merchant of Venice as a point of departure and a pivot of its discourse, The Yoke of Love is an intellectual foray into many issues and areas of thought suggested by the Shakespearean text, from cultural history and folklore to medieval philosophy and theology, from politics of the theatre to literary theory, from Jewish history to early modern debates on property, usury, and slavery - all converging in the cultural and theatrical deployment of prophetic riddles in the play involving inspired caskets, intriguing legal bonds, and problematic tokens of love. Tracing the conceptual history of prophecy since ancient times and relating it to relevant concepts such as conscience, wisdom, and time, The Yoke of Love establishes the special standing of the prophetic in early modern discourse and English Renaissance drama.