Portia is fond of proverbs, frequently quoting them, which was considered a sign of wisdom and intellect in the Elizabethan era. It has been suggested that the character of Portia was based on Queen Elizabeth, who was reigning at the time the play was written. [3]
In Shakespeare's play, Portia is a wealthy heiress in Belmont. She is bound by a lottery outlined in her father's will, which allows potential suitors to choose one of three caskets made of gold, silver, and lead, respectively. If they choose the correct casket containing Portia's portrait and a scroll, they win her hand in marriage. Portia is glad when two suitors, one driven by greed and another by vanity, fail to choose correctly. She favors Bassanio, a young but impoverished Venetian noble.
Later in the play, she disguises herself as a man and then assumes the role of a lawyer, Balthazar, whereby she saves the life of Bassanio's friend Antonio in court. In the court scene, Portia finds a technicality in the bond, as it does not allow for the removal of blood, thereby outwitting the Jewish moneylender Shylock and saving Antonio from giving the pound of flesh demanded when everyone else, including the Duke presiding as judge, fails. It is Portia who delivers one of the most famous speeches in The Merchant of Venice:
The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
In the end, Portia and Bassanio go on to live together along with the former's lady-in-waiting, Nerissa, and her husband, Gratiano.
Despite her lack of formal legal training, Portia wins her case by referring to the exact language of the law. The tactics she uses are, in modern terms, referred to as a "Philadelphia lawyer." These tactics help demonstrate her power in the court, contrasting with her earlier lack of choice in the marriage.
However, such tactics also lead to further discussions about the use and abuse of rhetoric. As a vital concept of civic life during the Elizabethan era, rhetoric often indicates an individual's wit (in a way, similar to the modern term "Intellect"[4]), while at the same time intricately linked to moral issues as it possesses the potential to obfuscate distinctions between good and wrong. [5] For example, the abuse of rhetoric skills is brought to light by Portia – highlighting the idea that an unjust argument may win through eloquence, loopholes and technicalities, regardless of the moral question at hand – and thus provoking the audience to consider that issue.
The New England School of Law was originally known as the Portia Law School when it was established in 1908 as a women-only law school and was known by that name until 1969.[7]
In his Rumpole novels, author John Mortimer has Rumpole call Phyllida Erskine-Brown (née Trant) the "Portia of our Chambers".[8]
Georgina Weldon, the celebrated Victorian litigant and amateur soprano, was referred to as the "Portia of the Law Courts".[9]
Portia is a moon of Uranus, one of several such named after Shakespearean characters.[10]
Portia de Rossi (born Amanda Lee Rogers), married to Ellen DeGeneres, adopted the name Portia to reinvent herself after becoming a model and actress.[11]
The Portia Hypothesis, which states women with masculine-sounding names tend to be more successful in a legal profession than otherwise identical counterparts, is named after the character.[12]
The Merchant of Venice is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. A merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan taken out on behalf of his dear friend, Bassanio, and provided by a Jewish moneylender, Shylock, with seemingly inevitable fatal consequences.
Puck is the sixth-largest moon of Uranus. It was discovered in December 1985 by the Voyager 2 spacecraft. The name Puck follows the convention of naming Uranus's moons after characters from Shakespeare. The orbit of Puck lies between the rings of Uranus and the first of Uranus's large moons, Miranda. Puck is approximately spherical in shape and has diameter of about 162 km. It has a dark, heavily cratered surface, which shows spectral signs of water ice.
Portia Lee James DeGeneres, known professionally as Portia de Rossi, is an Australian-American retired actress. She played Nelle Porter on the American drama series Ally McBeal (1998–2002), for which she won a Screen Actors Guild Award; Lindsay Bluth Fünke on the American television sitcom Arrested Development, and Elizabeth North on the American political thriller series Scandal (2014–2017). She is the founder and CEO of the art company General Public.
Portia is an inner satellite of Uranus. It was discovered from the images taken by Voyager 2 on 3 January 1986, and was given the temporary designation S/1986 U 1. The moon is named after Portia, the heroine of William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice. It is also designated Uranus XII.
Uranus, the seventh planet of the Solar System, has 28 confirmed moons. Most of them are named after characters that appear in, or are mentioned in, the works of William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope. Uranus's moons are divided into three groups: thirteen inner moons, five major moons, and ten irregular moons. The inner and major moons all have prograde orbits and are cumulatively classified as regular moons. In contrast, the orbits of the irregular moons are distant, highly inclined, and mostly retrograde.
The Merchant of Venice is a 2004 romantic drama film based on Shakespeare's play of the same name. It is the first full-length sound film in English of Shakespeare's play—other versions are videotaped productions which were made for television, including John Sichel's 1973 version and Jack Gold's 1980 BBC production.
Antonio is one of the central characters in William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice. He is portrayed as a wealthy and respected merchant residing in Venice, known for his generosity and melancholic disposition. Antonio is a close friend of Bassanio, another important character in the play, and their bond serves as a crucial element of the story.
Women in Shakespeare is a topic within the especially general discussion of Shakespeare's dramatic and poetic works. Main characters such as Dark Lady of the sonnets have elicited a substantial amount of criticism, which received added impetus during the second-wave feminism of the 1960s. A considerable number of book-length studies and academic articles investigate the topic, and several moons of Uranus are named after women in Shakespeare.
The Merchant of Venice is a 1969 drama short film directed by Orson Welles based on William Shakespeare's play of the same name. While actually completed, it is frequently cited as an unfinished film, though better described as a partially lost film due to the loss of film elements.
The Merchant of Venice is a 1923 German silent drama film directed by Peter Paul Felner and starring Werner Krauss, Henny Porten and Harry Liedtke. The film is an adaptation of William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice. It was released in the United States in 1926 as The Jew of Mestri. The film was made on location in Venice, with scenes and characters added which were not in the original play. This is the surviving copy, being two reels shorter than the German version. The characters in the German retained Shakespeare's nomenclature, but in the American they were given new names sourced from the Italian work Il Pecorone, a 14th-century short story collection attributed to Giovanni Fiorentino, from which Shakespeare is believed to have drawn his idea. The film purports to be a return to the original, as an excuse for its differences from the play.
"The quality of mercy" is a speech given by Portia in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. In the speech, Portia, disguised as a lawyer, begs Shylock to show mercy to Antonio. The speech extols the power of mercy, "an attribute to God Himself".
Shylock is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice. A Venetian Jewish moneylender, Shylock is the play's principal villain. His defeat and conversion to Christianity form the climax of the story.
The Merchant of Venice is an opera by André Tchaikowsky (1935–1982) to a libretto, based on the Shakespeare play, by John O'Brien. Written between 1968 and 1982, it was first performed in 2013 at the Bregenz Festival. The British premiere was presented by the Welsh National Opera in September 2016.
Shylock is a 1940 Indian Tamil-language film directed by Kinema Ramu and Serukalathur Sama and produced by Bharat Pictures. It is based on William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice, and features Sama as the title character. The film was released on 23 November 1940 and failed commercially. No print of it is known to survive, making it a lost film.
The Merchant of Venice is a 1961 Australian television adaptation of the play by William Shakespeare that aired on 13 September 1961 in Sydney, and on 25 October 1961 in Melbourne.
Jessica is the daughter of Shylock, a Jewish moneylender, in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. In the play, she elopes with Lorenzo, a penniless Christian, and a chest of her father's money, eventually ending up in Portia and Bassanio's household. In the play's dramatic structure, Jessica is a minor but pivotal role. Her actions motivate Shylock's vengeful insistence on his "pound of flesh" from Antonio; her relationships with Lorenzo and Shylock serve as a mirror and contrast to Portia's with Bassanio and with her father; her conversion to Christianity is the end of Shylock's line's adherence to the Jewish faith.
The Merchant is a 1976 play in two acts by the English dramatist Arnold Wesker. It is based on William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, and focuses on the Jewish Shylock character, that play's principal antagonist.
Bassanio is a fictional character in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.
The Shylock Suite, Op. 57 is a six-movement work by Gabriel Fauré, first performed in 1890. In addition to four purely orchestral movements it includes two serenades for solo tenor with orchestral accompaniment. The composer constructed the suite from incidental music he had written the previous year for Edmond Haraucourt's play Shylock, an adaptation of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, presented at the Théâtre de l'Odéon in Paris. The theatre music had been written for a small orchestra, and Fauré greatly expanded the orchestration for the concert suite.
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