Portia's View of Justice in "The Merchant of Venice"

Roberta Linciano, University of Salento, has published "'Is that the law?': Portia's Mockery of Justice in The Merchant of Venice," in the Italian Society for Law and Literature (January 2010). Here is the abstract.

In this paper I examine the role performed by the disguised lawyer Portia during the trial Shylock vs. Antonio in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. With reference to the social, political and economic background of the Elizabethan age, I will explore Portia’s conception of justice, trying to assess if she acts as a loyal and equitable judge or as a vile impostor and investigating to what extent her conduct can be regarded as a model by modern lawyers or as a mere play upon the words.

While the paper should be available for download via SSRN, I could not get the download to work.