Abstract
One of the most poignant moments in The Merchant of Venice is when Shylock learns that the turquoise ring he valued above anything was not only stolen by his daughter Jessica, but also traded for a monkey. This essay uses Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice as a lens for exploring the value of turquoise in the early modern period. Shakespeare’s deliberate use of a turquoise ring in his play is profoundly emblematic, meant convey cultural contentions and serve as a touchstone for questions of trade and exoticism. But the turquoise, coming from Persia and Arabia, was also a valuable stone in sixteenth-century England. It was worn by queens and also given as gifts to and from queens. Mary Stuart received a turquoise ring when she was being pressured to abdicate the throne of Scotland. For Queen Elizabeth, her turquoise jewelry worked as a symbol of expansion of empire and exchange.
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Shakespeare at Kalamazoo session of the Medieval Congress, May, 2013, and the Society for Renaissance Studies at Southampton University July, 2014, and in Venice in July 2016 as part of the University of Warwick’s program to accompany the production of The Merchant in Venice held in the Jewish Ghetto, Carole would like to thank Carol Rutter for her great hospitality during that time. The authors are deeply grateful to Jo Eldridge Carney for her help with this essay.
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Levin, C., Auble, C. (2017). “I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys”: Turquoise, Queenship‚ and the Exotic. In: Paranque, E., Probasco, N., Jowitt, C. (eds) Colonization, Piracy, and Trade in Early Modern Europe. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57159-1_8
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