Bassanio’s bailout: A brief history of risk, Shakespeare to Wall Street

Abstract

Shakespeare’s most searching anatomy of risk, The Merchant of Venice depicts the wagering not only of money but of love and life itself. This paper places Merchant in a long history that traces the concept of risk from classical theatre to medieval scholasticism to modern sociology. Over the course of this history, the moral and economic dimensions of risk become increasingly fugitive and unmappable. Shakespeare’s play illustrates this process in miniature, and in so doing casts light on our contemporary “risk society,” including the financial meltdown of 2008.