SOURCE: Berley, Marc. “Shakespeare and the ‘Sweet Power of Music.’” In After the Heavenly Tune: English Poetry and the Aspiration to Song, pp. 83-140. Pittsburgh, Pa.: Duquesne University Press, 2000.

In the following excerpt, Berley focuses on the dramatic context of Lorenzo's speech about music and harmony in Act V, scene i of The Merchant of Venice.

Shakespeare put into dramatic conflict all of the competing theories considered in the previous chapter. Platonic speculation, Aristotelian ars, and Neoplatonic magic all have a place not only in dramatic and lyric poetry, Shakespeare knew, but in the contemplation and enjoyment of life itself. Living in a nation hungry for musical language, he dramatized not only individual poetic aspiration to a heavenly tune but also the complex aspiration of an entire nation at once to enjoy the music he could give them and examine their proper enjoyment of it. The importance of...