Measure for Measure Critics Flashcards
Trevor Nunn on law and order, justice
“an eminent can argue that it doesn’t matter if innocent individuals suffer as long as the idea of the law is upheld… the distinction between law and justice is on every page of ‘Measure for Measure’”
Maus on the law and sexuality, death and sex
“an issue of contemporary concern; what would happen if… sexual misconduct could be punished with death”
McNamara on Lucio, Pompey and the state
“superficially, they appear to be clowns… indirectly, they raise controversial issues about the role of the state in governing our lives”
Emma Smith on the changes Shakespeare made and the law
“Shakespeare’s change has made Claudio more sympathetic… thus makes the severity of Angelo’s interpretation of the law seem all the more questionable.”
Martin on the marriages
“The conclusion of marriage seems, then, a matter of control and punishment imposed on couples in an arbitrary and despotic manner, not the natural and harmonious conclusion of a comedy, but a clumsy and obviously artificial solution to intractable problems.”
McNamara on Lucio and Pompeys clowning and sexual repression
“clowning and word play combine to make serious moral and political points about the requirement for sexual repression”
Hampton-Reeves on the movement between settings
“the play moves between the two different worlds of court and city”
Patsy Hall on what Lucio and Pompey represent
“Lucio and Pompey, representing common humanity, comically reflect images of a diseased world in which those who make the rules are as tainted as those who break them”
Cox on justice
“it may be, however, that the final message of the play is that it is impossible to measure justice at all precisely in an imperfect world, since ‘a feather will turn a scale’ not only between bawd and executioner but between the same human in different guises”
Lasnoski on justice and mercy (roof)
“Shakespeare measures the cost of housing these two virtues [mercy and justice] under the same roof”
Lasnoski on justice, mercy and the government
“to place both mercy and justice in the hands of the government exposes these virtues to misuse and misapplication at the hands of the imperfect people who wield them”
Lasnoski on the Duke and mercy and justice
“the Duke’s misapplication of mercy and justice is confusing and unsettling”
Patsy Hall on justice
“since justice should be even-handed, it’s only fitting that he [Lucio] merits the same ‘punishment’ as Angelo: marriage to the woman he has abandoned and wronged”
Hereward Price on sexual passion
“sexual passion is neither to be abused nor to be denied. It is to be used in accordance with Nature’s purpose”
Rifer on sex
“sex in this Vienna is to be either punished or belittled”
Riefer on Isabella’s fears
“what Isabella is afraid of, synonymous with her loss of virginity, is her loss of respect, both her own self-respect and the respect of the community”
Smith on sex and the audience of the time
“[people at the time] might have been a bit more comfortable with the play’s frankly unromantic designation of sex within an economy of civic transactions”
McNamara on Lucio and sex
“Lucio’s gentle comedy presents the sinful act of fornication as natural and therefore normalises what Claudio and Juliet have done, indicating to the audience the injustice that has taken place by the criminalisation of their love”
Coursen on the Duke
the Duke is “a strangely passive protagonist, a disguised eavesdropper- a good character for melodrama”
Riefer on the Duke’s disguise
“Vincentio, wearing Friar Francis’ robe, had become the very thing he accuses Angelo of being: an ‘angel on the outward side”
Lasnoski on Isabella’s mercy and what it means for the duke
“Isabella’s drastic turnaround in the fifth act has shown the achievement of the Duke’s goal to inspire his citizens to grapple with mercy and justice”
Lasnoski on the Duke’s mercy at the end of act 5
“if… the Duke’s goal is to teach his people and bring the community together, then to condemn Claudio, Barnadine, Angelo, and Lucio serves little purpose”
Maus on female virtue
“female ‘virtue’ has traditionally been defined in physical as well as mental terms”
Lasnoski on the Duke and Jesus
“following the footsteps of Jesus, the Duke creates a living parable in Vienna”
Emma Smith on the issues in the play
“a bleakly existential world which raises and cannot resolve difficult ethical and moral issues”
Hall on the justice system - clauds and pomp’s
“we are obviously meant to question a system of justice which sentences to death the faithful Claudio for generating life, while allowing leniency to a degenerate like Pomey if he’ll commit judicial murder”
Hopkins on what marriages provide
“marriages are used to provide comic closure”
Hopkins on what marriages don’t provide
“despite the traditional view that marriage provides comic closure, this is, in fact, very rarely achieved”
Hopkins on what marriage emphasizes
“emphasis on continuity” “experiences of the group”
Hopkins on what people do at the end of comedies
“take their allotted parts”
Hampton-Reeves on the play’s purpose
“the play was not simply written to flatter one man”
Martin on the state and C and J
“the state has interfered unnecessarily in their relationship, putting it under immense strain through both the Duke’s relinquishment of responsibility and subsequent interference, and Angelo’s imposition of the old ‘strict statures and most biting laws’”
McNamara on Shakespeare’s use of comedy
“Shakespeare uses comedy as a means of interrogating complex ideas about the correct role of religion in society while simultaneously protecting himself from criticism”
Lees on James’s royal proclamation in 1603
James sought to “drive out the ‘idle, ignorant, dissolute and dangerous persons’… whores and bawds usually numbered among such dissolute persons” by his “first royal proclamation in 1603”
Patsy Hall on the central dilemma
“the central dilemma of the play revolves around how permissive a society can or should be”
Hereward Price on vice
“it is obviously Shakespeare’s purpose to show vice… as black and ugly as possible. He wants us to abhor Pompey’s trade”
Mackay on Isabella
“she is a woman who keeps the letter and the spirit of the law in a society which does not”
Ruber and Kramps on the law against Claudio
“the law that condemns Claudio is Puritan in nature”
Mutschmann on religion
“it was an age in which religion mattered supremely”
Hall on Lucio and Pompey vs the three main characters
“Pompey and Lucio have a better knowledge of their deficiencies than the three major characters”
Hall on Lucio and Pompey
“[Lucio and Pompey] are consistently faithful to their fallen natures”
Mortimer on plays
“a great play doesn’t answer questions, it asks them”
Swinburne on Measure as a tragedy
part of a group of tragedies “docked of their natural end”
Heywood on comedy
“comedies begin in trouble and end in peace”
