Critic Quotations - Measure for Measure Flashcards
Brockbank, the Duke’s manipulation of events:
“The Duke’s lies are white lies, meant to save the situation for the time being.”
“To be finding a theatrical solution to an otherwise insoluble human problem.”
“the fantastical Duke is a trickster too”
“Shakespeare is taking advantage of the range of conventions which the Jacobean theatre used in masque to allegorise the elusive ways of the Gods.”
Maus, sexual morals:
“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.”
“Isabella would perform an at of charity, generously sacrificing her own preferences.”
“debates over the extent to which the state ought to monitor the sexual behaviour of citizens”
“Angelo must force himself to remain aware of the principles he attempts so flagrantly to violate.”
Hampton-Reeves, the Politics of the Time:
“Those in the audience at the court were invited to see in the play’s representation of justice a mirror for themselves.”
“fretting about the nature of authority and suffering when authority is misapplied.”
“an actor could address their audience from three different sides, encouraging an intimacy between actors and audiences.”
“a cynical satire about the inconvenience of over-zealous authoritarianism.”
Kerr, the Features of Comedy:
“That a creature capable of transcending himself should at the same time be incapable of controlling himself is hilarious.”
“Comedy occurs when there is no way out / Comedy depends upon tragedy.”
“Man is in fact bounded in a nutshell.”
(Laugh at those who have hope in comedy, either out of pity or mockingly).
(In tragedy, we have hope and take our hope seriously).
Maslen, the Resilience of Comic Drama as an Evolving Form:
“Comedy was the dramatic form that dealt with commoners.”
“Comedy, on the other hand, made tyrants uncomfortable and roused them to rage.”
“ends by demonstrating its resistance to any form of containment.”
“It seems inevitable, then, that censorship should have hounded comedy from generation to generation.”
Laroque, The Festive Tradition:
Carnivalesque.
“Shakespeare’s festive comedies revel in a carnival spirit of liberty and irreverence.”
“Contrariwise, Jonson’s comical satires or Shakespeare’s subplots that take up the tricks of humours and the cruel games of deception and exposure.”
“insist on dissonance and cacophony.”
“that accompany the rites of love and restore harmony like some final, almost impossible miracle.”
Hopkins, Marriage in Shakespeare’s comedies:
“The tragic hero lives and dies a fundamentally lonely figure, traumatically separated from his God, his society and his surroundings.”
“In many instances, single or multiple marriages are used to provide comic closure.”
“the spectator will be forced to question both the meaning of the events they have witnessed and also the assumptions underlying their response to the events.”
“that marriage provides comic closure, this, in fact, is very rarely achieved.
