Interpretations+ Dramatisations Flashcards
(28 cards)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
“The most painful” or “rather, the only painful” work written by Shakespeare
Lighter and darker scenes are equally “disgusting” and “horrible”
Angelo’s behaviour is “degrading to women”
Claudio is “detestable”
Janet Adelman (1941-2010)
Women are split apart and then violently yoked together through the device of the bed trick”
Women were perceived as a single figure of sexuality
“Depersonalises love”
Richard P. Wheeler (1935-2019)
“Mistrust of sexuality”
Duke characterised by “denial of family ties and sexuality”
Citizens’ attitudes to sex and marriage is “barren”
Duke’s proposal presents “debased” attitudes to love and sexuality
Early Interpretations: 17th Cеntury
Assumed Isabella “accepted the Duke’s proposal”
Duke seen as exposing “hypocrisies” in Puritan moral code
Isabella’s purity was “not a flawed character”
Duke’s justice seen as “measured” and “merciful”
Modern Interpretations/ 20th Century
Female characters “limited by corrupted authority”
Plot illustrates “consequences of secrecy and deceit”
Prostitution marginalised; male brothel characters more visible
Freudian Interpretations:
Characters’ dilemmas come from “ego” and “id”
Mistress Overdone represents “pleasure, of id”
Angelo’s “psychological inner conflict” between conscience and desire
Isabella asks Angelo to “ask his heart what is right”
New Historicist Interpretations: 21st Century
Angelo says his “lies are more pertinent than Isabella’s truths”
Play “demystifies problems with authority and power”
Duke subverts standards of “capital punishment”
Feminist Interpretations: 21st Century
Women have “limited agency” in patriarchal society
Lucio “abandons Kate Keepdown and his child”
Lucio tells Isabella to use “her femininity” to win over Angelo
Male characters “categorise” women by sexual and marital status
Dramatisations- John Blatchley (1962)
Production was an “absorbing game of hide and seek”
Emphasised the “claustrophobic” nature of Vienna
Judi Dench’s Isabella was presented as “secular”
Angelo’s weakness suggested his “inevitable fall from grace”
Dramatisations- Steven Pimlott (1994)
Duke was portrayed as “sinister”
Isabella “slaps him, kisses him, then breaks into tears”
Angelo pleads for death, “banging the table” in distress
Presented Angelo as a “victim of his own fallibilities”
John Fletcher (1610)
“A tragicomedy is not so called in respect of mirth and killing, but in respect it wants deaths, which is enough to make it no tragedy, yet brings some near it, which is enough to make it no comedy.”
Charlotte Lennox (1753-55)
Shakespeare’s use of dark elements in the play, ‘tortures it into a Comedy […] this play therefore being absolutely defective, in a due distribution of rewards and punishments.’
Samuel Johnson (1765)
‘Angelo’s crimes were such, as must sufficiently justify punishment … and I believe every reader feels some indignation when he finds him spared.’
The play is a ‘mingled drama’, representing ‘the real state of sublunary nature’, combining the tragic and comic.
William Hazlitt (1817)
The play is ‘as full of genius as it is of wisdom’; however, ‘our sympathies are repulsed and defeated in all directions.’
The ‘principle of repugnance’ is most clearly seen in the amoral figure of Barnadine.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1827)
‘It is a hateful work… Our feelings of justice are grossly wounded by Angelo’s escape. Isabella herself contrives to be unamiable, and Claudio is detestable.’
Walter Pater (1839-94)
Likes the play better, stating it demonstrates ‘the tyranny of nature and circumstance over human action’ and has a ‘finer justice’ than other plays, with a ‘more delicate appreciation of the true conditions of men and things.’
George Bernard Shaw (1898)
Thought the play is ahead of its time, and that Shakespeare ‘is ready and willing to start at the twentieth century if only the seventeenth would let him.’
Northrop Frye (1950)
The structure of the play encourages the audience to judge contrasting elements, asking them to compare characters’ behaviors.
F. R. Leavis (1962)
The Duke is ‘a kind of Providence directing the action from above’ with his total attitude meant to be ours – the attitude of the play.
The “resolution of the plot” is ‘ballet-like in its patterned formality and masterly in stagecraft.’
Josephine Walters Bennett (1966)
We should ‘enjoy the dilemmas of the characters without imagining that they could really happen.’
Lisa Jardine (1983)
Isabella’s character is drawn from stereotypes of female behavior; “while Isabella may seem to resist such stereotypes, her punishment is to be disliked by the play and its audience.”
L.C. Knights (1987)
Believes the play’s ambiguity is one of its strengths.
Jonathan Dollimore (1985)
The play ‘dramatises an exercise in authoritarian repression’, with the Duke’s surveillance and Christian morality keeping the populace under a form of ideological control.
Philip Brockbank (1989)
The Duke’s manipulative behavior benefits other characters. He becomes an extension of the playwright, enabling theatrical solutions to problems.
