Measure for Measure

By William Shakespeare and Paul Werstine

Measure for Measure is among the most passionately discussed of Shakespeare’s plays. In it, a duke temporarily removes himself from governing his city-state, deputizing a member of his administration, Angelo, to enforce the laws more rigorously. Angelo chooses as his first victim Claudio, condemning him to death because he impregnated Juliet before their marriage.

Claudio’s sister Isabella, who is entering a convent, pleads for her brother’s life. Angelo attempts to extort sex from her, but Isabella preserves her chastity. The duke, in disguise, eavesdrops as she tells her brother about Angelo’s behavior, then offers to ally himself with her against Angelo.

Modern responses to the play show how it can be transformed by its reception in present culture to evoke continuing fascination. To some, the duke (the government) seems meddlesome; to others, he is properly imposing moral standards. Angelo and Isabella’s encounter exemplifies sexual harassment. Others see a woman’s right to control her body in Isabella’s choice between her virginity and her brother’s life.

The authoritative edition of Measure for Measure from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers, includes:

-The exact text of the printed book for easy cross-reference
-Hundreds of hypertext links for instant navigation
-Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play
-Full explanatory notes conveniently linked to the text of the play
-Scene-by-scene plot summaries
-A key to the play’s famous lines and phrases
-An introduction to reading Shakespeare’s language
-An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play
-Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library’s vast holdings of rare books
-An annotated guide to further reading

Essay by Christy Desmet

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare’s printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit Folger.edu.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release date: Aug 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781501126581

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is the world's greatest ever playwright. Born in 1564, he split his time between Stratford-upon-Avon and London, where he worked as a playwright, poet and actor. In 1582 he married Anne Hathaway. Shakespeare died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two, leaving three children—Susanna, Hamnet and Judith. The rest is silence.

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THE NEW FOLGER LIBRARY

SHAKESPEARE

Designed to make Shakespeare’s great plays available to all readers, the New Folger Library edition of Shakespeare’s plays provides accurate texts in modern spelling and punctuation, as well as scene-by-scene action summaries, full explanatory notes, many pictures clarifying Shakespeare’s language, and notes recording all significant departures from the early printed versions. Each play is prefaced by a brief introduction, by a guide to reading Shakespeare’s language, and by accounts of his life and theater. Each play is followed by an annotated list of further readings and by a Modern Perspective written by an expert on that particular play.

Barbara A. Mowat is Director of Research emerita at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Consulting Editor of Shakespeare Quarterly, and author of The Dramaturgy of Shakespeare’s Romances and of essays on Shakespeare’s plays and their editing.

Paul Werstine is Professor of English at the Graduate School and at King’s University College at Western University. He is a general editor of the New Variorum Shakespeare and author of Early Modern Playhouse Manuscripts and the Editing of Shakespeare, as well as many papers and essays on the printing and editing of Shakespeare’s plays.

The Folger Shakespeare Library

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is a privately funded research library dedicated to Shakespeare and the civilization of early modern Europe. It was founded in 1932 by Henry Clay and Emily Jordan Folger, and incorporated as part of Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts, one of the nation’s oldest liberal arts colleges, from which Henry Folger had graduated in 1879. In addition to its role as the world’s preeminent Shakespeare collection and its emergence as a leading center for Renaissance studies, the Folger Shakespeare Library offers a wide array of cultural and educational programs and services for the general public.

EDITORS

BARBARA A. MOWAT

Director of Research emerita

Folger Shakespeare Library

PAUL WERSTINE

Professor of English

King’s University College at Western University, Canada

From the Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library

It is hard to imagine a world without Shakespeare. Since their composition more than four hundred years ago, Shakespeare’s plays and poems have traveled the globe, inviting those who see and read his works to make them their own.

Readers of the New Folger Editions are part of this ongoing process of taking up Shakespeare, finding our own thoughts and feelings in language that strikes us as old or unusual and, for that very reason, new. We still struggle to keep up with a writer who could think a mile a minute, whose words paint pictures that shift like clouds. These expertly edited texts are presented as a resource for study, artistic exploration, and enjoyment. As a new generation of readers engages Shakespeare in eBook form, they will encounter the classic texts of the New Folger Editions, with trusted notes and up-to-date critical essays available at their fingertips. Now readers can enjoy expertly edited, modern editions of Shakespeare anywhere they bring their e-reading devices, allowing readers not simply to keep up, but to engage deeply with a writer whose works invite us to think, and think again.

The New Folger Editions of Shakespeare’s plays, which are the basis for the texts realized here in digital form, are special because of their origin. The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is the single greatest documentary source of Shakespeare’s works. An unparalleled collection of early modern books, manuscripts, and artwork connected to Shakespeare, the Folger’s holdings have been consulted extensively in the preparation of these texts. The Editions also reflect the expertise gained through the regular performance of Shakespeare’s works in the Folger’s Elizabethan Theater.

I want to express my deep thanks to editors Barbara Mowat and Paul Werstine for creating these indispensable editions of Shakespeare’s works, which incorporate the best of textual scholarship with a richness of commentary that is both inspired and engaging. Readers who want to know more about Shakespeare and his plays can follow the paths these distinguished scholars have tread by visiting the Folger either in person or online, where a range of physical and digital resources exist to supplement the material in these texts. I commend to you these words, and hope that they inspire.

Michael Witmore

Director, Folger Shakespeare Library

Contents

Editors’ Preface

Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure

Reading Shakespeare’s Language: Measure for Measure

Shakespeare’s Life

Shakespeare’s Theater

The Publication of Shakespeare’s Plays

An Introduction to This Text

Characters in the Play

Measure for Measure

Text of the Play with Commentary

Act 1

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Act 2

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Act 3

Scene 1

Scene 2

Act 4

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

Scene 6

Act 5

Scene 1

Longer Notes

Historical Background

Textual Notes

Measure for Measure: A Modern Perspective

by Christy Desmet

Further Reading

Key to Famous Lines and Phrases

Commentary

Act 1

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Act 2

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Act 3

Scene 1

Scene 2

Act 4

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

Scene 6

Act 5

Scene 1

Editors’ Preface

In recent years, ways of dealing with Shakespeare’s texts and with the interpretation of his plays have been undergoing significant change. This edition, while retaining many of the features that have always made the Folger Shakespeare so attractive to the general reader, at the same time reflects these current ways of thinking about Shakespeare. For example, modern readers, actors, and teachers have become interested in the differences between, on the one hand, the early forms in which Shakespeare’s plays were first published and, on the other hand, the forms in which editors through the centuries have presented them. In response to this interest, we have based our edition on what we consider the best early printed version of a particular play (explaining our rationale in a section called An Introduction to This Text) and have marked our changes in the text—unobtrusively, we hope, but in such a way that the curious reader can be aware that a change has been made and can consult the Textual Notes to discover what appeared in the early printed version.

Current ways of looking at the plays are reflected in our brief prefaces, in many of the commentary notes, in the annotated lists of Further Reading, and especially in each play’s Modern Perspective, an essay written by an outstanding scholar who brings to the reader his or her fresh assessment of the play in the light of today’s interests and concerns.

As in the Folger Library General Reader’s Shakespeare, which the New Folger Library Shakespeare replaces, we include explanatory notes designed to help make Shakespeare’s language clearer to a modern reader, and we hyperlink notes to the lines that they explain. We also follow the earlier edition in including illustrations—of objects, of clothing, of mythological figures—from books and manuscripts in the Folger Shakespeare Library collection. We provide fresh accounts of the life of Shakespeare, of the publishing of his plays, and of the theaters in which his plays were performed, as well as an introduction to the text itself. We also include a section called Reading Shakespeare’s Language, in which we try to help readers learn to break the code of Elizabethan poetic language.

For each section of each volume, we are indebted to a host of generous experts and fellow scholars. The Reading Shakespeare’s Language sections, for example, could not have been written had not Arthur King, of Brigham Young University, and Randal Robinson, author of Unlocking Shakespeare’s Language, led the way in untangling Shakespearean language puzzles and shared their insights and methodologies generously with us. Shakespeare’s Life profited by the careful reading given it by the late S. Schoenbaum, Shakespeare’s Theater was read and strengthened by Andrew Gurr and John Astington, and The Publication of Shakespeare’s Plays is indebted to the comments of Peter W. M. Blayney. We, as editors, take sole responsibility for any errors in our editions.

We are grateful to the authors of the Modern Perspectives; to Leeds Barroll and David Bevington for their generous encouragement; to the Huntington and Newberry Libraries for fellowship support; to King’s College for the grants it has provided to Paul Werstine; to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, which provided him with a Research Time Stipend for 1990–91; to R. J. Shroyer of the University of Western Ontario for essential computer support; to Jo Ann McNamara for generously sharing her expertise in the history of the religious life; and to the Folger Institute’s Center for Shakespeare Studies for its fortuitous sponsorship of a workshop on Shakespeare’s Texts for Students and Teachers (funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and led by Richard Knowles of the University of Wisconsin), a workshop from which we learned an enormous amount about what is wanted by college and high-school teachers of Shakespeare today; and especially to Steve Llano, our production editor at Pocket Books, whose expertise and attention to detail are essential to this project.

Our biggest debt is to the Folger Shakespeare Library: to Michael Witmore, Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, who brings to our work a gratifying enthusiasm and vision; to Gail Kern Paster, Director of the Library from 2002 until July 2011, whose interest and support have been unfailing and whose scholarly expertise continues to be an invaluable resource; and to Werner Gundersheimer, the Library’s Director from 1984 to 2002, who made possible our edition; to Deborah Curren-Aquino, who provides extensive editorial and production support; to Jean Miller, the Library’s Art Curator, who combs the Library holdings for illustrations, and to Julie Ainsworth, Head of the Photography Department, who carefully photographs them; to Peggy O’Brien, former Director of Education at the Folger and now Director of Education Programs at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, who gave us expert advice about the needs being expressed by Shakespeare teachers and students (and to Martha Christian and other master teachers who used our texts in manuscript in their classrooms); to Jessica Hymowitz and Wazir Shpoon for their expert computer support; to the staff of the Academic Programs Division, especially Amy Adler, Mary Tonkinson, Kathleen Lynch, Linda Johnson, Carol Brobeck, Mariann Payne, Toni Krieger, and Martha Fay; and, finally, to the generously supportive staff of the library’s Reading Room.

Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine

Vienna.

From John Speed, A prospect of the most famous parts of the world . . . (1631).

Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure

Measure for Measure is a play rooted deeply in early seventeenth-century culture; at the same time, it retains a powerful hold on the imaginations of modern readers. In an attempt to suggest why Measure for Measure continues to be among the most passionately discussed of Shakespeare’s plays, we might think about the ways that the seventeenth-century issues it dramatizes relate to present-day concerns.

Measure for Measure features a duke who is so anxious about the decline in the moral quality of his subjects’ lives that he temporarily removes himself from the government of his city-state and deputizes a member of his administration, Angelo, to enforce existing laws more rigorously. Angelo, who has never before had the opportunity to exercise such power over others and who thus has never had to withstand the temptation to misuse it, experiences no qualms of conscience as he holds all in the city to the same idealized standard of moral behavior that he thinks he himself exemplifies. The man he chooses as his first victim is Claudio, who has impregnated Juliet before they have solemnized their marriage. For this crime, Angelo condemns Claudio to death.

At Claudio’s request, Isabella, who is Claudio’s sister, approaches Angelo to plead for her brother’s life. Every bit as idealistic as Angelo, Isabella is in the process of entering the convent of the Order of Poor Clares, where she will vow lifelong obedience, poverty, and chastity. Her eloquence in addressing Angelo arouses in him the desire to possess her, a desire so strange to him that he immediately gives in to it and, renouncing integrity and morality, attempts to extort sex from her in return for her brother’s life. Isabella, denied any opportunity to expose Angelo’s corruption, is nonetheless resolute in her spiritual commitment to preserve her chastity, no matter the consequences. Meanwhile, the duke has disguised himself as a friar so as to discover the true nature of his subjects. After eavesdropping on Isabella’s revelation to her brother about Angelo’s attempted extortion, the duke (in his friar’s disguise) offers to ally himself with Isabella against Angelo.

In view of the overriding importance of religion and the spiritual life in early seventeenth-century England, and in view of the control exerted over both religion and morality by the State in this era when Parliament actually debated the death penalty for pre-marital sex, it is easy to see how Measure for Measure might capture its audience’s interest. In today’s culture, however, in which religion exerts an influence on the lives of only part of the population, it would seem unlikely that Measure for Measure could engage audiences in anything like the same way it once did. Yet there are now other issues that have attached themselves to the play.

One such issue is the division of opinion about the role of government in shaping the morality of citizens. For those who regard such governmental action as intrusive, the duke may seem intolerably meddlesome in his interference in the lives of his people; for those who want government to act in the defense of conventional morality, the duke may be understood as properly exerting himself to impose standards of moral behavior on his people. Another issue that has become attached to the play is sexual harassment of women by men, with Angelo and Isabella’s encounter presenting itself as a powerfully dramatic representation of this ongoing problem. Yet another current issue, the right of a woman to control her own body, has arisen for modern readers from the scenes in which Isabella is forced to choose between her virginity and her brother’s life. Modern responses to Measure for Measure indicate how a play that is formed in a past culture can be transformed in its reception by present culture into a spectacle of continuing fascination.

After you have read the play, we invite you to read "Measure for Measure: A Modern Perspective" by Professor Christy Desmet of the University of Georgia, contained within this eBook.

Reading Shakespeare’s Language: Measure for Measure

For many people today, reading Shakespeare’s language can be a problem—but it is a problem that can be solved. Those who have studied Latin (or even French or German or Spanish) and those who are used to reading poetry will have little difficulty understanding the language of Shakespeare’s poetic drama. Others, though, need to develop the skills of untangling unusual sentence structures and of recognizing and understanding poetic compressions, omissions, and wordplay. And even those skilled in reading unusual sentence structures may have occasional trouble with Shakespeare’s words. More than four hundred years of static intervene between his speaking and our hearing. Most of his immense vocabulary is still in use, but a few of his words are not, and, worse, some of his words now have meanings quite different from those they had in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the theater, most of these difficulties are solved for us by actors who study the language and articulate it for us so that the essential meaning is heard—or, when combined with stage action, is at least felt. When reading on one’s own, one must do what each actor does: go over the lines (often with a dictionary close at hand) until the puzzles are solved and the lines yield up their poetry and the characters speak in words and phrases that are, suddenly, rewarding and wonderfully memorable.

Shakespeare’s Words

As you begin to read the opening scenes of a play by Shakespeare, you may notice occasional unfamiliar words. Some are unfamiliar simply because we no longer use them. In the opening scenes of Measure for Measure, for example, you will find the words kersey (coarse cloth), foppery (foolishness, folly), sith (since), and foison (abundance). Words of this kind are explained in notes to the text and will become familiar the more of Shakespeare’s plays you read.

In Measure for Measure, as in all of Shakespeare’s writing, more problematic are the words that we still use but that we use with a different meaning. In the opening scenes of Measure for Measure, for example, the word meat has the meaning of food in general (rather than a particular kind of food), owe is used where we would say own or possess, straight is used where we would say immediately, friends where we would say relatives, and unhappy where we would say unfortunate. Such words are explained in the notes to the text, but they, too, will become familiar as you continue to read Shakespeare’s language.

Some words are strange not because of the static introduced by changes in language over the past centuries but because these are words that Shakespeare is using to establish the multiple settings in which the fiction of his play is to be imagined as taking place. Measure for Measure brings together worlds that we in modern culture ordinarily regard as being widely separated from each other. The first of these is the highest level of public administration and of the justice system of Vienna, built up for us in the play’s opening dialogue with reference to terms of common justice, deputation, and secondary, or subordinate. By the play’s second act, however—and repeatedly thereafter—the elevated language of this world is brought into connection with accounts of an underworld of organized prostitution, of a hothouse, a whoremaster, and a trot. Thus Measure for Measure brings together, with some satiric effect, two language worlds that are conventionally regarded as far removed from each other in terms of respectability. Into these worlds comes Isabella, who is first presented to us in an altogether distinct setting, the convent, which becomes vivid to us with such terms as votarists, renouncement, and Prioress. The collision of perspectives that makes for intense drama in Measure for Measure arises in part from the play’s bringing together characters who come from such different settings.

Shakespeare’s Sentences

In an English sentence, meaning is dependent on the place given each word. The dog bit the boy and The boy bit the dog mean very different things, even though the individual words are the same. Because English places such importance on the positions of words in sentences, on the way words are arranged, unusual arrangements can puzzle a reader. Shakespeare frequently shifts his sentences away from normal English arrangements—often to create the rhythm he seeks, sometimes to use a line’s poetic rhythm to emphasize a particular word, sometimes to give a character his or her own speech pattern or to allow the character to speak in a special way. When we attend a good performance of the play, the actors will have worked out the sentence structures and will articulate the sentences so that the meaning is clear. In reading for yourself, do as the actor does. That is, when you become puzzled by a character’s speech, check to see if words are being presented in an unusual sequence.

Look first for the placement of subject and verb. Shakespeare often rearranges verbs and subjects (e.g., instead of He goes we find Goes he). In Measure for Measure, when Lucio says "Upon his place . . . / Governs Lord Angelo," he is using such a construction. (The normal arrangement would be Lord Angelo governs.) The duke also inverts subject and verb when he says "Then was your sin of heavier kind than his. Shakespeare frequently places the object before both the subject and the verb (e.g., instead of I hit him, we might find Him I hit) or between the subject and the verb (I him hit). Escalus’s A power I have is an example of such an inversion, as is Isabella’s men their creation mar."

Inversions are not the only unusual sentence structures in

Reviews for Measure for Measure

[nicolesch-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Measure for Measure is a play about lust in the sense that Claudio has been sleeping with a woman, Juliet even though they are not married. Is it love or is it lust. In my mind this is really love turned into lust because they had been married, but could not acknowledge it because of some problem with the legality. They are in love but lust creeps into the scene because they refuse wait any longer and thus they break the law.

Angelo is passing judgement on Claudio once he gains power. He appears to be an honest, just person in the beginning of Act One. His true desire is revealed when Isabella comes to try to save her brother. Angelo than is portrayed as a creep and someone who no one would like to meet in a dark alley. He pretends to be something but he really is not. He reminds me of (the Disney) version of Claude Frollo, (I can't speak for Victor Hugo's version, as I haven't read it yet) from the Hunchback of Notre Dame, with Isabella in the place of Esmeralda, as the kind, innocent woman he lusts for and is trying to manipulate in order to get what he wants.

The Duke believes his city is corrupt and he believes that he cannot fix the city without his people hating him because he has not enforced the law. He believes the law needs to be enforced now but he does not believe that he will be able to do it because he has been so lax in allowing the people not to follow the law. He leaves this problem to Anglo thus abdicating his responsibility. "I do fear, too dreadful:/Sith ‘twas my fault to give the people scope,/For what I bid them do: for we bid this be done/When evil deeds have their permissive pass/And not the punishment. Therefore, indeed, my father,/I have on Angelo impos’d the office;/Who may, in the ambush of my name, strike home,/And yet my nature never in the fight,/To do it slander. And to behold his sway,/I will, as ‘twere a brother of your order,/Visit both prince and people: therefore, I pr’ythee,/Supply me with the habit, and instruct me/How I may formally in person bear me/Like a true friar."

The Duke’s true desire is to have people like him but he also wants his city to be a city of people with good morals. He believes Angelo is of good character and by leaving the city in the hands of Angelo, he is able to see if his people will live a moral life and if Angelo is a good leader who is able to get the people to follow a moral life. I also wonder if the Duke perhaps does not have an heir thus trying out Angelo as a potential heir, and therefore, in leaving him in charge of the city, yet remaining behind to watch, may have been his way of testing to see if Angelo could be a good leader. I don’t think the Duke, Vincentio, is trying to torture his citizens. He seems to want to help them and have a city that is morally good but he doesn’t think they will listen to him because he has not enforced the law so it will be too hard to change the behavior. Yet even if he had good intentions, leaving his people at the mercy of Angelo was a cowardly way to fix the problems he saw. At the very least he should have revealed himself when he learned of Angelo's corruption, and attempts to get Isabella into his bed, instead of going through the elaborate hoax to make Angelo think he had gotten what he wanted.

The Duke is the driving force behind the play because it him who decides the city needs to change. The message Shakespeare leaves me with is that man is unconsciously immoral and there is corruption even in men who we believe are good. This is of course illustrated in Angelo who in the beginning uses Claudio as an example of immoral behavior but he himself becomes even a bigger example of immoral behavior when he tries to corrupt the good and innocent Isabella.

I'm not entirely satisfied by the ending of the play. I admire Isabella's forgiving Angelo who wronged her so, much as I admire Immaculee Ilibagiza for forgiving the people who did her wrong, but just because Angelo was forgiven doesn't mean that he should have gotten out of punishment. Only Mariana's grief kept him from death, but I feel she deserved better than Angelo. Claudio has survived, and I'm sure that Isabella will forgive him for what he asked her to do to save his life, but will he forgive himself? Even ignoring the fact that Isabella wanted to become a nun, the tactics of manipulation Angelo was using were such that I would say he was trying to rape her, and Claudio wanted her to let him.

I liked the way that the duke conducted himself, coming as the duke, then the friar, and then revealing himself, as the friar to be the duke, but I don't like what he asked of Isabella. She was trying to become a nun, and this play has taken place over the course of, at most, three or four days. That is not enough time to discern out of your perceived vocation. My grandma almost became a nun, but discerned that she was called to marriage, and years later, married my grandpa. (I have pictures of her in a habit dated 1947 and she got married in 1952). If I was confident that Isabella had discerned that she was called to marriage I wouldn't object to the duke asking for her hand, but four days (at the most) is not enough for her to have made that decision, especially since she was preoccupied with trying to save her brother and believed the duke to be a friar. It makes me doubt the duke's motivations in saving Isabella and her brother. Did he do it just because he wanted Isabella, not because it was the right thing to do? I haven't completely lost faith in him, but I do doubt his character now.

The beginning of my book has summaries of all of Shakespeare's plays so that, I suppose you can read to supplement your understanding of them. I feel that Isabella would be justified to be upset with the duke's proposal, but the summary says "He himself makes Isabella his Duchess," and even Wikipedia says that "her reaction is interpreted differently in different productions: her silent acceptance of his proposal is the most common in performance. This is one of the "open silences" of the play." I find this frustrating because she wanted to become a nun and while it's possible to change your mind and discern that you're called to marriage it would take a lot of prayer and more time than was given in the play to come to that decision.

While I liked the duke in most of the play, I found his marriage proposal to Isabella to be disrespectful to her and her vocation.

The ending isn't a comedy, that's for sure. The only comedic part of the play was Lucio (slandering the duke, unknowingly, to his face), and he is going to prison to be executed. But all isn't lost, the main characters yet live, so it's not really a tragedy either. I describe Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand as a Tragicomedy because, though it is subtitled 'a comedy in five acts' and until the very end of the fourth act it does seem like one, but the ending is tragic. Measure for Measure can't even have that title, as it doesn't have enough comedy or tragedy to be called either, or both.

I liked parts of this ending, but I disliked other parts. Because of this, I did not find it satisfying.

(this review is made up of comments I made for an online Shakespeare class)

[antiquary_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Unlike some critics, I do not find this a "problem play" because of Isabella's refusal to save her brother by having sex with Angelo. As my teacher at Oxford pointed out, giving in to tyranny is never the best answer, and in fact we know within the play that if she had submitted Angelo would have betrayed her and killed her brother anyway.

[amerynth · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While certainly not amongst my favorite of Shakespeare's plays, I did find "Measure for Measure" an enjoyable one.It's a dark comedy. Claudio and gets his fiance Juliet pregnant, so he is sentenced to death for having sex before marriage by Angelo. Claudio's sister begs for his life and the once righteous Angelo attempts to strike a horrible bargain with her. The play also featured a disguised Duke who comes to the rescue. This play is well-paced and not terribly difficult to follow. It lacks some of those great lines that have migrated into our vernacular though.

[coach_of_alva · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I am very fond of this play. I am always moved by the horror of the situation and enjoy the machinations by which the incognito Duke restores justice. I don't care much for the complaints about its supposed uneven tone, since I regard it as a "serious" drama with a little humor.

[meandmybooks-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Wow. Only Shakespeare could take such an unlikeable bunch of characters and implausible plot and create such an enjoyable play, though a fair lot of the fascination is of the “train wreck” variety – desire to see Angelo get his “just” desserts, amazement at the Duke's stupidity, and revulsion at Isabella's priorities. The scene I really missed was the one where the oh-so-holy Isabella asks Mariana to “fill in” for her with Angelo in order to save Isabella's brother. That was a request that took some gall! I found the concluding “trial” scene rather unsatisfactory, but there are some really beautiful speeches here. I read this in the Folger edition, which has decent size print and fine facing explanatory notes, and listened to the Archangel recording, which is excellent and really brought the play vividly to life.

[clara53_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this play prior to going to see it enacted onstage. (And I am glad I did - for it was an unusual interpretation!). As I started reading, I wondered why this was classified as comedy, but as I read on I understood why, even notwithstanding the topic (corruption vs purity) and things like capital punishment discussed. I almost felt Shakespeare winking at me from above... Comedy it is - even though of a darker kind. And the thing is that though the old English phraseology made me at times re-read a line or two, Shakespeare's dialogue is so witty, his language is so enchanting that it didn't take away from the joy of reading. Like this, for instance: "... Lord Angelo; a man whose blood is very snow-broth..."; and, referring to an exhaustingly long explanation in conversation: "This will last out a night in Russia, when nights are longest there..."; and last but not least, the well-known phrase: "Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall" - which pretty much sums it all up.

[doondeck · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Dark comedy with few if any redeeming characters

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

A very dark tragi-comedy. Makes the 20th century sexual revolution look chaste by comparison. Not a fave -- characters are very 2-dimensional. The Duke is cruel in his kindness. If I were Isabella, I would have slapped him rather than marry him.

[bell7_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When the Duke leaves Vienna, he puts a deputy, Angelo, in charge. Angelo is a bit hard-nosed, and decides to revive some of the laws that have been largely ignored by both populace and ruler. Specifically, he imprisons a man who impregnated the woman. Despite the fact that Claudio is willing to marry this woman, Angelo orders that the law be carried out and Claudio must die. Can Claudio's sister, Isabella, convince Angelo to relent?While not one of Shakepeare's most obscure plays, Measure for Measure is also not one I had ever read for school. It does not have oft-quoted lines like Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet, though it does still have sentiments that have found its way into our popular culture (the idea of "hate the sin and love the sinner" shows up). The title is taken from Matthew 7:1-2: "Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." In this case, our judge Angelo is the least sympathetic character in the play. Instead, you really feel for people like Claudio, who makes a mistake but wants to make it right as well as he can, and Isabella who truly loves her brother but is given an awful choice to save his life. I'm not sure I fully agree with the sentiments of the play, and I was a little surprised by the frank discussion of sex and prostitution (I'm not sure why, it's not like I never read Shakespeare before...). If not one of my favorites, it was still a thought-provoking read.

[mrslee_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A Duke decides to test the character of one of his trusted aides, and at the same time get away from the heavy load of Dukedom. The aide decides that the law is not being enforced strictly enough and puts a man in jail, condemned to death, for getting a woman (not his wife) with child. Then he (the aide) succumbs to temptation and tries to corrupt the condemned man's sister, hiding his failure by killing the man and denying the truth of the sister's complaint. The Duke is working behind the scenes trying to right the wrongs; balancing the law, justice and mercy.Shakespeare weaves it all so much better than I, just go read the play.

[jhudsui_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Another one where the climactic plot resolution is a rape and counter-rape scheme. I like the portrayal of the Duke in this, though, it's one of the best "disguised ruler" roles I've read. He's in almost every scene, gets some cool comic bits and is basically kind of front and center as the protagonist despite being incognito the whole time.

[tadad_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was listed as a comedy in a collection I have of Shakespeare's plays...it didn't seem quite one to me given the basic plot element of "sleep with me or I'll kill your brother." Still, I enjoyed it more than average.

[composingcomposer · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Measure for Measure is a play about lust in the sense that Claudio has been sleeping with a woman, Juliet even though they are not married. Is it love or is it lust. In my mind this is really love turned into lust because they had been married, but could not acknowledge it because of some problem with the legality. They are in love but lust creeps into the scene because they refuse wait any longer and thus they break the law.

Angelo is passing judgement on Claudio once he gains power. He appears to be an honest, just person in the beginning of Act One. His true desire is revealed when Isabella comes to try to save her brother. Angelo than is portrayed as a creep and someone who no one would like to meet in a dark alley. He pretends to be something but he really is not. He reminds me of (the Disney) version of Claude Frollo, (I can't speak for Victor Hugo's version, as I haven't read it yet) from the Hunchback of Notre Dame, with Isabella in the place of Esmeralda, as the kind, innocent woman he lusts for and is trying to manipulate in order to get what he wants.

The Duke believes his city is corrupt and he believes that he cannot fix the city without his people hating him because he has not enforced the law. He believes the law needs to be enforced now but he does not believe that he will be able to do it because he has been so lax in allowing the people not to follow the law. He leaves this problem to Anglo thus abdicating his responsibility. "I do fear, too dreadful:/Sith ‘twas my fault to give the people scope,/For what I bid them do: for we bid this be done/When evil deeds have their permissive pass/And not the punishment. Therefore, indeed, my father,/I have on Angelo impos’d the office;/Who may, in the ambush of my name, strike home,/And yet my nature never in the fight,/To do it slander. And to behold his sway,/I will, as ‘twere a brother of your order,/Visit both prince and people: therefore, I pr’ythee,/Supply me with the habit, and instruct me/How I may formally in person bear me/Like a true friar."

The Duke’s true desire is to have people like him but he also wants his city to be a city of people with good morals. He believes Angelo is of good character and by leaving the city in the hands of Angelo, he is able to see if his people will live a moral life and if Angelo is a good leader who is able to get the people to follow a moral life. I also wonder if the Duke perhaps does not have an heir thus trying out Angelo as a potential heir, and therefore, in leaving him in charge of the city, yet remaining behind to watch, may have been his way of testing to see if Angelo could be a good leader. I don’t think the Duke, Vincentio, is trying to torture his citizens. He seems to want to help them and have a city that is morally good but he doesn’t think they will listen to him because he has not enforced the law so it will be too hard to change the behavior. Yet even if he had good intentions, leaving his people at the mercy of Angelo was a cowardly way to fix the problems he saw. At the very least he should have revealed himself when he learned of Angelo's corruption, and attempts to get Isabella into his bed, instead of going through the elaborate hoax to make Angelo think he had gotten what he wanted.

The Duke is the driving force behind the play because it him who decides the city needs to change. The message Shakespeare leaves me with is that man is unconsciously immoral and there is corruption even in men who we believe are good. This is of course illustrated in Angelo who in the beginning uses Claudio as an example of immoral behavior but he himself becomes even a bigger example of immoral behavior when he tries to corrupt the good and innocent Isabella.

I'm not entirely satisfied by the ending of the play. I admire Isabella's forgiving Angelo who wronged her so, much as I admire Immaculee Ilibagiza for forgiving the people who did her wrong, but just because Angelo was forgiven doesn't mean that he should have gotten out of punishment. Only Mariana's grief kept him from death, but I feel she deserved better than Angelo. Claudio has survived, and I'm sure that Isabella will forgive him for what he asked her to do to save his life, but will he forgive himself? Even ignoring the fact that Isabella wanted to become a nun, the tactics of manipulation Angelo was using were such that I would say he was trying to rape her, and Claudio wanted her to let him.

I liked the way that the duke conducted himself, coming as the duke, then the friar, and then revealing himself, as the friar to be the duke, but I don't like what he asked of Isabella. She was trying to become a nun, and this play has taken place over the course of, at most, three or four days. That is not enough time to discern out of your perceived vocation. My grandma almost became a nun, but discerned that she was called to marriage, and years later, married my grandpa. (I have pictures of her in a habit dated 1947 and she got married in 1952). If I was confident that Isabella had discerned that she was called to marriage I wouldn't object to the duke asking for her hand, but four days (at the most) is not enough for her to have made that decision, especially since she was preoccupied with trying to save her brother and believed the duke to be a friar. It makes me doubt the duke's motivations in saving Isabella and her brother. Did he do it just because he wanted Isabella, not because it was the right thing to do? I haven't completely lost faith in him, but I do doubt his character now.

The beginning of my book has summaries of all of Shakespeare's plays so that, I suppose you can read to supplement your understanding of them. I feel that Isabella would be justified to be upset with the duke's proposal, but the summary says "He himself makes Isabella his Duchess," and even Wikipedia says that "her reaction is interpreted differently in different productions: her silent acceptance of his proposal is the most common in performance. This is one of the "open silences" of the play." I find this frustrating because she wanted to become a nun and while it's possible to change your mind and discern that you're called to marriage it would take a lot of prayer and more time than was given in the play to come to that decision.

While I liked the duke in most of the play, I found his marriage proposal to Isabella to be disrespectful to her and her vocation.

The ending isn't a comedy, that's for sure. The only comedic part of the play was Lucio (slandering the duke, unknowingly, to his face), and he is going to prison to be executed. But all isn't lost, the main characters yet live, so it's not really a tragedy either. I describe Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand as a Tragicomedy because, though it is subtitled 'a comedy in five acts' and until the very end of the fourth act it does seem like one, but the ending is tragic. Measure for Measure can't even have that title, as it doesn't have enough comedy or tragedy to be called either, or both.

I liked parts of this ending, but I disliked other parts. Because of this, I did not find it satisfying.

(this review is made up of comments I made for an online Shakespeare class)