Analysis On Portia’s Legal Acts From The Perspective Of Judicial Justice

As one of the four Shakespeare‘s most celebrated comedies,The Merchant of Venice is worldly famous not only for Portia‘s trespass into the Venetian courtroom to save Antonio from being ―slaughtered‖ legally,but also for the jurisprudential issues manifested in the paly.Based on the theory of ―literature and law‖,this thesis,with the aim of offering a new conclusion intends to analyze Portia‘s legal acts particularly her prosecution,trial,debate and explanation on both the law and the presented evidence,and her judgment on the case between Shylock and Antonio.This thesis is composed of five chapters: one for introduction,three for main body,and one for conclusion.The chapter of introduction briefly presented the movement of ―law and literature‖ and its outstanding representatives.Besides,this part also generally introduces the relevant researches both at home and abroad.The second chapter intensively illustrates the theory of judicial justice and generally demonstrates the two fundamental elements of the judicial justice,namely the procedural justice and the substantive justice and clarifies that the former one indicates the justice presented in the trial,while the latter one emphasizes the ―result‖.The third chapter analyzes mainly the injustice involved in Portia‘s trial by pointing out the sophistry,ambiguous and illegal identity,and illegitimate trial process.The fourth part then focuses on the injustice embodied in the ―result‖,including Portia‘s unbalanced ―allocation‖ and incorrect law application.The conclusion part summarizes the research findings of this thesis.Given that the City of Venice had already built a relatively sound law system,Portia‘s legal acts can never achieve the ideal of ―justice‖ when we criticize such actions from the perspective of jurisprudence.To some extent,this research is expected to enrich the content of current criticism on the play of The Merchant of Venice and,sponsored by the previously related researches,provides readers with a relatively more rational way of assessing Portia‘s character and her legal acts presented in the play.