A wilderness of monkeys: value, love and the law of the father’s will in The Merchant of Venice

'I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys': so, says The Merchant of Venice's Shylock, referencing the ring gifted to him by his late wife, Leah, now stolen by his errant daughter, Jessica. An odd pronouncement for a character often read as an exemplar of exchange values for whom everyone and everything has its price. Excepting, of course, Leah's 'turquoise'. The implied use value of which repositions Shakespeare's most uncomfortable stereotype – Shylock as the Jewish usurer – as a critic, rather than comprador, of early modern Capital, thereby anticipating not only Marx but Freud. For at stake in The Merchant of Venice is nothing less than the surplus-jouissance of the Capitalist's discourse itself, coincident with, but ultimately defined against the 'jewish-ssance' of Shylock. This article will draw upon the insights of psychoanalysis, as well as those of political economy to examine the status of value, love, and law in The Merchant of Venice, arguing that Shylock may be not only Capitalism's fiercest critic, but its most misunderstood psychotherapist.