Measure for Measure
With respect to genre, Measure for Measure is a comedy.
It explores the following broader concepts and themes:
Governance, The State, and Authority
Measure of Measure is centrally concerned with the question of what constitutes appropriate governance. What kinds of behavioral strictures are necessary for good governance? What makes a commonwealth well-governed and misgoverned? What qualities are necessary for figures of authority? Given the play’s opening scene with Escalus and the Duke, and the Duke’s transfer of power to Angelo, what sorts of values does the Duke exercise and give over? Is the Duke a good Duke? Note any/all parts that take up these questions directly, as well as passages in which Shakespeare gives us character traits that we must account for in assessing whether somebody’s a good authority figure or not.
The Law & Legal Structures
Of course, the matter of the law overlaps with the concepts listed above; we list law and legal structures here in part because Shakespeare seems intent on making repeated references to the law and the very specific documents and institutions that enable its enforcement. Write down any references you see to the law or the particular forms the law takes (for instance, proclamations, statutes, warrants, and the inverse, including verbal agreements and other less formal promises and contracts).
Because of the play’s emphasis on crime––specifically crimes related to sex, but not limited to them––we are afforded access to an underworld and the people who inhabit a series of institutions (the prison and the brothel) where dissolute behavior takes place. List examples here of characters and character traits that we wouldn’t find in the world of aristocrats that inhabit Shakespeare’s other comedy. How different do these people seem and what, specifically, do you notice about the way they speak, their conversations and jokes, and their interests or motives?
Bodily Presence, Absence, Substitution, Surveillance
Shakespeare seems especially preoccupied with the notion of presence and absence in this play; in particular, he reminds us to watch characters’ bodies carefully, and to listen when characters claim they intend to extricate themselves––that is, their physical selves––from social relationships that might otherwise constrain them to remain in a place or with people. Closely related to this concern with absence and presence is the methods that enable absence, bodily disguise and/or substitution, and the opportunities that those methods enable (or are supposed to enable). Pay attention to places where characters ask others to imagine themselves in the place of another, or literally take the place of another.
Public/Private Spaces
Whereas Twelfth Night is a play set in two households, the action in Measure for Measure takes place alternately in public spaces and private spaces, out in the open or behind closed doors. Some spaces are a mingling of both open and closed, public and private: the prison, for instance, or the place where Juliet is taken. What does it mean to act or be in each kind of space? What acts are licensed or prevented? How often are characters alone and able to act in private or have what we’d consider privacy?
Religion and Chastity
This play, much more so than Twelfth Night, invokes religious values and doctrine, and often do so in regard to sexual activity. Isabella’s staunch values appear to be parallel with those of Angelo; Lucio, Claudio, and Juliet are positioned elsewhere on the spectrum. Take note of references to chastity and find examples that demonstrate the extent to which a character’s virtue is contingent on his or her status as a virgin. Is it possible in a place like Vienna to remain spiritually pure and co-exist with sinners? Is being a nun or a friar the sole alternative for women and men who aim to be free of sin? Sex is both a sin and a crime there; is the condemnation of it primarily out of deference to the Bible or is it rooted primarily in the secular law? What’s the relationship between law and church and what parts of the text speak to their distinctions and interconnections?