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Measure for Measure is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604. It was originally classified as a comedy, but is now also classified as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. Originally published in the First Folio of 1623, the play's first recorded performance was in 1604. The play deals with the issues of mercy, justice, truth and their relationship to pride and humility: "Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall"
main source of the play is George Whetstone's 1578 lengthy two-part closet drama Promos and Cassandra.
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Quotations
Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,Another thing to fall.
Angelo, scene i
Let me be ignorant and in nothing good,But graciously to know I am no better.
Isabella, scene iv
O! it is excellentTo have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannousTo use it like a giant.
Isabella, scene ii
Our doubts are traitors,And make us lose the good we oft might win, By fearing to attempt.
Lucio, scene iv
Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.
Escalus, scene i
Encyclopedia
Measure for Measure is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604. It was originally classified as a comedy, but is now also classified as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. Originally published in the First Folio of 1623, the play's first recorded performance was in 1604. The play deals with the issues of mercy, justice, truth and their relationship to pride and humility: "Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall"
Sources
The main source of the play is George Whetstone's 1578 lengthy two-part closet drama Promos and Cassandra. Whetstone took the story from Cinthio's Hecatommithi, which Shakespeare seems to have consulted, as well as a dramatization of the story, also by Cinthio.
The title, which appears as a line of dialogue in the play, may be related to the Bible, :
- For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
Date, text and authorship
Measure for Measure is believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604. The play was first published in 1623 in the First Folio.
In their book Shakespeare Reshaped, 1606-1623, Gary Taylor and John Jowett argue that the text of Measure that survives today is not its original form, but rather the product of a revision, after Shakespeare's death, by Thomas Middleton. They present stylistic evidence that patches of writing are by Middleton, and argue that Middleton changed the setting to Vienna, from an original version set in Italy.
Characters
The Duke is the central figure who spends most of his time dressed as a friar, Lodowick, in order to observe what is happening in his absence. He is seemingly unfailingly virtuous, good, and kind-hearted. He has tended to rule a little softly, which is why he has enlisted Angelo's help. In the First Folio, The Duke is listed in the Dramatis Personae as "Vincentio," but this name appears nowhere else in the play.
Isabella, a novice nun, is a virtuous and chaste young woman who faces a difficult decision when her brother is sentenced to death for fornication. Isabella does not approve of her brother's actions, but she pleads for his life out of loyalty, sisterly devotion, and a belief that the punishment is too harsh for the crime. Ultimately she would rather her brother die and go to heaven, than she herself live a life of hell: "more than our brother is our chastity".
Claudio is Isabella's brother, a young man sentenced to death for impregnating an unmarried woman. He was engaged to her by a common-law agreement, but they had sexual intercourse before the legal marriage took place. According to the play, by the letter of the law this was punishable by death, but the more recent sentence had been to force two 'fornicators' to marry.
Angelo is the villain of the play, a man who rules strictly and without mercy. He has his own weaknesses, however; he is a hypocrite. He presents Isabella with a difficult proposition, to sleep with him in exchange for her brother's life, but then does not hold up his end of the bargain when he believes she has held hers.
Escalus is a wise lord who advises Angelo to be more merciful. He is loyal to the Duke and seeks to carry out his orders justly, but cannot go against Angelo's will. As his name suggests (Scales), he is concerned with the practice of justice, but he makes errors of judgement as well as having his decisions prejudiced by social status: 'are you of four score pounds a year?...I would not have you acquainted with tapsters [bartenders]'.
Lucio, described by Shakespeare as a "fantastic," is a flamboyant bachelor who provides much of the play's comedy. He is a friend of Claudio, and tries to help him. He is a bawdy gentleman, but beneath his comic veneer he has a darker side; he would rather die than marry the whore, Kate Keepdown, who had his child around a year ago and he informs on Mistress Overdone (who looks after his illegitimate child) resulting in her imprisonment.
Mariana was intended to marry Angelo, but he called the wedding off when she lost her dowry in a shipwreck that killed her brother.
Mistress Overdone runs a brothel in Vienna. She cares for the young son of Kate Keepdown (a prostitute) and Lucio.
Pompey is a bawd and 'tapster' (barman) who works for Mistress Overdone.
The Provost runs the prison, and is responsible for carrying out all of Angelo's orders.
Elbow is a dim-witted constable who arrests people for misconduct, particularly of the sexual variety. He provides some comic relief through his frequent use of malapropisms in his speech.
Barnardine is a long-term prisoner in the jail, sentenced to be executed. The Duke originally considers him hopeless and therefore dispensable but later is forced to change his mind by Barnadine, who 'will not consent to die this day', and whose drunkenness means that 'to transport him, in the mind he is, were damnable'.
Juliet is Claudio's lover, pregnant with his child.
Justice is a friend of Escalus. He has only three lines but his name is commonly seen as symbolic; his most significant line is "Lord Angelo is severe".
Synopsis
Vincentio, the Duke of Vienna, makes it known that he intends to leave the city on a diplomatic mission. He leaves the government in the hands of a strict judge, Angelo. Under the Duke's government, the city's harsh laws against fornication have been laxly enforced, but Angelo, who later reveals himself as a hypocrite, is known to be a hard-liner on matters of sexual immorality.
Claudio, a young nobleman, is betrothed to Juliet; having put off their wedding, he makes her pregnant out of wedlock. For this act of fornication he is punished by Angelo. Although he is willing to marry her, he is sentenced to death. Claudio's friend Lucio visits Claudio's sister Isabella, a postulant nun, and asks her to intercede with Angelo on Claudio's behalf.
Isabella obtains an audience with Angelo, and pleads to him for mercy. Over the course of two scenes between Angelo and Isabella, it becomes clear that he harbours lustful thoughts for her, and he eventually offers her a deal: Angelo will spare Claudio's life if Isabella will yield him her virginity. Isabella refuses, but she also realises that (due to Angelo's austere reputation) she will not be believed if she makes a public accusation against him. Instead she visits her brother in prison, and counsels him to prepare himself for death. Claudio vehemently begs Isabella to save his life, but Isabella refuses.
The Duke has not in fact left cul the city, but remains there disguised as a friar, in order to spy on his city's affairs, and especially the actions of Angelo. In his guise as a friar he befriends Isabella and arranges two tricks to thwart the evil intentions of Angelo:
- First, a "bed trick" is arranged. Angelo has previously refused to fulfill the betrothal binding him to Mariana, because her dowry was lost at sea. Isabella sends word to Angelo that she has decided to submit to him, making it a condition of their meeting that it occurs in perfect darkness and silence. In fact, Mariana agrees to take Isabella's place, and she has sex with Angelo, although he continues to believe he has enjoyed Isabella. (In some interpretations of the law, this constituted consummation of their betrothal, and so marriage.)
- Contrary to expectation, Angelo goes back on his word, sending a message to the prison that he wishes to see Claudio's head, which necessitates the "head trick." The Duke first attempts to arrange the execution of another prisoner whose head can be sent instead of Claudio's. However, the villain Barnardine refuses to be executed in his current drunken state. As luck would have it, however, a pirate named Ragozine, of similar appearance to Claudio, has recently died of a fever, so his head is sent to Angelo, instead.
This main plot concludes with the "return" to Vienna of the Duke in his own person. Isabella and Mariana publicly petition him, and he hears their claims against Angelo, which Angelo smoothly denies. The scene builds a sense that Friar Ludowick will be blamed for the "false" accusations levelled against Angelo. The Duke leaves Angelo to be judge of the cause against Ludowick, but returns in disguise moments later when Ludowick is summoned. Eventually the friar reveals himself to be the duke, thereby exposing Angelo as a liar and Isabella and Mariana as truthful. He proposes execution for him -- with his estate going to Mariana as her new dowry, 'to buy you a better husband'. Mariana pleads for Angelo's life, even enlisting the aid of Isabella (who is not yet aware her brother Claudio is still living). Heeding the request of the two women, the Duke is merciful to Angelo, but compels him to marry Mariana. The Duke then proposes marriage to Isabella. Isabella makes no reply, and her reaction is interpreted differently in different productions: her silent acceptance of his proposal is the most common in performance.
A sub-plot concerns Claudio's friend Lucio, who frequently slanders the duke to the friar, and in the last act slanders the friar to the duke, providing opportunities for comic consternation on Vincentio's part, and landing Lucio in trouble when it is revealed that the duke and the friar are one and the same person. His punishment, like Angelo's, is to be forced into an unwanted marriage: in his case with the whore Kate Keepdown.
Performance
The earliest recorded performance of Measure for Measure took place on "St. Steven's night", December 26, 1604.
During the Restoration, Measure was one of many Shakespearean plays adapted to the tastes of a new audience. Sir William Davenant inserted Benedick and Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing into his adaptation, called The Law Against Lovers. Samuel Pepys saw the hybrid play on 18 February 1662; he describes it in his Diary as "a good play, and well performed"—he was especially impressed by the singing and dancing of the young actress who played Viola, Beatrice's sister (Davenant's creation). Davenant rehabilitated Angelo, who is now only testing Isabella's chastity; the play ends with a triple marriage. This, among the earliest of Restoration adaptations, appears not to have succeeded on stage.
Charles Gildon returned to Shakespeare's text in a 1699 production at Lincoln's Inn Fields. His adaptation, entitled Beauty the Best Advocate, removes all of the low-comic characters. Moreover, by making both Angelo and Mariana, and Claudio and Juliet, secretly married, he eliminates almost all of the illicit sexuality that is so central to Shakespeare's play. In addition, he integrates into the play scenes from Henry Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas, which Angelo watches sporadically throughout the play. Gildon also offers a partly facetious epilogue, spoken by Shakespeare's ghost, who complains of the constant revisions of his work. Like Davenant's, Gildon's version did not gain currency and was not revived.
John Rich presented a version closer to Shakespeare's original in 1720.
In late Victorian times the subject matter of the play was deemed controversial, and there was an outcry when Adelaide Neilson appeared as Isabella in the 1870s . The Oxford University Dramatic Society found it necessary to edit it when staging it in February 1906, with Gervais Rentoul as Angelo and Maud Hoffman as Isabella, and the same text was used when Oscar Asche and Lily Brayton staged it at the Adelphi Theatre in the following month.
William Poel produced the play, with himself as Angelo, in 1893 at the Royalty and in 1908 at the Gaiety in Manchester. In line with his other Elizabethan performances, these used the uncut text of Shakespeare's original with only minimal alterations. The use of an unlocalized stage lacking scenery, and the swift, musical delivery of dramatic speech set the standard for the rapidity and continuity shown in modern productions. Poel's work also marked the first determined attempt by a producer to give a modern psychological or theological reading of both the characters and the overall message of the play.
Notable recent productions of Measure for Measure are Peter Brook's 1950 staging at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre with John Gielgud as Angelo, Charles Laughton as Angelo at the Old Vic Theatre in 1933, and a 1976 New York Shakespeare Festival production featuring Meryl Streep as Isabella and John Cazale as Angelo. The play has only been produced on Broadway once, in a 1973 production that featured David Ogden Stiers as Vincentio and Kevin Kline in the small role of Friar Peter.
Adaptations and cultural references
Film Adaptations
- 1979 BBC Version directed by Desmond Davis, generally considered to be a faithful rendition of the play.
- 2006 Version directed by Bob Komar, set in the British Army
Musical Adaptations
Cultural References
- The character of Mariana inspired Tennyson for his poem Mariana (1830).
- The plot of the play was taken by Alexander Pushkin in his poetic tale Angelo (1833). Pushkin had begun to translate the Shakespearean play, but finally arrived at a generally non-dramatic tale with some dialog scenes.
- Thomas Hardy's novel, The Woodlanders, quotes the Duke.
- The Bertolt Brecht play, Round Heads and Pointed Heads, was originally written as an adaptation of Measure for Measure.
External links
- - searchable e-text
- - HTML version of this title.
- - plain vanilla text from Project Gutenberg
- - Sparknotes' interpretation of key themes, scenes and characters.
- - Synopsis, key themes, characters, literary and cultural background.
- - Film DVD contemporary re-working.
- Measure For Measure feature film, on IMDB
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