Measure for Measure: Notes (1)

The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical- historical-pastoral; scene individable [a play with a single location], or poem unlimited [a play with many imagined locations]. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ [following the "unities"] and the liberty [not following classical rules], these are the only men. (Hamlet 2.2.403-9)

• Is Measure for Measure a comedy?
• What is a "problem play"?
  • Issues as problems for debate
    • mercy/justice
    • the abuse of power
    • money and sex (prostitution and dowries)
  • Problematic moments in the play
    • the bed-trick
    • the mood shift halfway through the play
    • the sub-plot
    • consistent characterization? (the Duke, Isabella)
    • the ending of the play: forgiveness all round (back to square one) and the proposal to Isabella

• The decision of the Duke to hand power over to Angelo, as distinct from the more conventional appointment of Promos as governor of the city under the King.
• The intervention of Lucio, persuading Isabella to plead on behalf of her brother, rather than Andrugio (Claudio) pleading himself.
• The fact that Isabella is on the point of entering a nunnery, thus making the proposal by Angelo more shocking.
• The presence of an external tempter to urge Promos (Angelo) to seduce Cassandra (Isabella). Angelo needs no Phallax to encourage his fall.
• Promos/Angelo actually offers marriage to Cassandra/Isabella, whereas the thought apparently never enters Angelo's head that his passion for Isabella could have an honorable expression.
• Cassandra is persuaded to sleep with Promos.
• The whole character of Mariana and the bed-trick is grafted onto the plot by Shakespeare.
• Shakespeare invents the conveniently dead Ragozine, presumably to allow the hardened criminal Barnardine to survive.
• Promos is troubled by guilt, and is willing to confess his crime, whereas Angelo shows little or no sign of conscience until the Duke's disguise is revealed.
• With Angelo paired to Mariana, Shakespeare adds the further offer of marriage by the Duke to Isabella.

• A. P. Rossiter (Angel with Horns: And Other Shakespeare Lectures [London: Longmans, 1961]) lists what he sees as the characteristics of Shakespeare's problem plays:
  • Ironical deflating of authority and the heroic, contrasted by genuine and deeply-felt human goodness
  • A disturbing view of human response to sexuality
  • The painfulness of the discovery of ugliness beneath a seemingly attractive surface (good old appearance v. reality)

• Wilson Knight: "the play tends towards allegory or symbolism."
• The Duke as a kind of providential overseer (compare Prospero)
• Morality play? Or parable?