'A Gentile and No Jew': The Difference Marriage Makes in The Merchant of Venice

Critics are divided on the precise nature of the difference between Christian and Jew as represented in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. By investigating reported cases of inter-racial (or cross-cultural) marriages circulating in early modern England, and by close examination of the relationship between Lorenzo and Jessica in the play, one is able to map out the competing discourses of race, theology, and gender in the construction of 'the Jew' during the Elizabethan period.