Critic Quotations - Measure for Measure Flashcards
Brockbank - “The Duke’s lies are white lies, meant to save the situation for the time being.” (about the Duke)
Brockbank - “Shakespeare is taking advantage of the range of conventions […] to allegorise the elusive ways of the Gods.”
Brockbank - “To be finding a theatrical solution to an otherwise insoluble human problem” / “the fantastical Duke is a trickster too” (Duke)
Maus - “if chastity is a state of mind, then the fate of Isabella’s body is possibly independent of, and irrelevant to the fate of her soul”
Maus - “Isabella would perform an act of charity, generously sacrificing her own preferences”.
“debates over the extent to which the state ought to monitor the sexual behaviour of citizens”
Maus - “Angelo must force himself to remain aware of the principles he attempts so fragrantly to violate”.
Hampton-Reeves - “fretting about the nature of authority and suffering when authority is misapplied”
“a cynical satire about the inconvenience of over-zealous authoritarianism”
Hampton-Reeves - “an actor could address their audience from three different sides, encouraging an intimacy between [them]”
“those in the audience at the court were invited to see in the play’s representation of justice a mirror for themselves”
Kerr - “comedy occurs when there is no way out” / “comedy depends upon tragedy”
“that a creature capable of transcending himself should at the same time be incapable of controlling himself is hilarious” (Angelo)
Maslen - “comedy was the dramatic form that dealt with commoners”
“[comedy] ends by demonstrating its resistance to any form of containment”
Maslen - “censorship should have hounded comedy from generation to generation”
“comedy, on the other hand, made tyrants uncomfortable and roused them to rage”
Laroque - “insist on dissonance and cacophony” / “Shakespeare’s subplots that take up the tricks of humour and the cruel games of deception and exposure”.
Laroque - “that accompany the rites of love and restore harmony like some final, almost impossible miracle”.
Hopkins - “the tragic hero lives and dies a fundamentally lonely figure, traumatically separated from his God, his society and his surroundings”.
Hopkins - “that marriage provides comic closure, this, in fact, is very rarely achieved”.
“the audience is repeatedly encouraged to expect that the proceedings will be appropriately closed with a wedding - but these expectations are then either disappointed, or gratified in such a way that the spectator will be forced to question the meaning of the events he or she has witnessed”.
Glyn Austen (the Duke fulfills the comic structure) - “The Duke never truly lets go of the reins of influence” / “he is a puppeteer whose strange purpose drives […] events”.
Glyn Austen - “the Duke performs a vital role in ensuring that such a regeneration takes place”.
“he does indeed dispense judgement with an absolute authority that mirrors divine judgement”.
Austen - “the prince [Duke] is exercising his rightful claim to be a kind of priest” / “delve into the spiritual well-being of his subjects and lead them to redemption”
McGuire - marriage is based on “shared erotic attraction and mutual love”
Martin - marriage is “a matter of control and punishment, imposed on couples in an arbitrary and despotic manner”.
Boas - “at the close our feeling is neither of simple joy nor pain; we are excited, fascinated, perplexed, for the issues raised preclude a completely satisfactory outcome”.
Tillyard (Isabella) - “decided and uncompromising person”
Angelo becomes “mere man and as deeply in need of God’s mercy as any sinner”.
Laroque - “carnival spirit of liberty and irreverence”
Roe - “what [‘Measure’] presents more than anything is the virtue of moderation, doing things in a kind, thoughtful, considered way.”
Martin - “the sense that we are being taken into a world that is darker than is appropriate for comedy”.
“the play is deeply mired in situations of existential anguish and despair”.
Shapiro - “perfectly capture[] the time of Jame’s England”.
Middleditch - “forces [of restraint and liberty] that reside in all of us”
Hampton-Reeves - the “play was not written to simply flatter one man”
