Critical Quotes

Question 1

Paola Dionisotti

her portrayal of Isabella for the RSC in 1978

Answer 1

“My Isabella was very frightened of sexuality… and doesn’t particularly enjoy being among people”

“because people are so complicated to deal with… their contradictions force you to look at your own, which Claudio does to Isabella”

“I think she’s scared. My Isabella was very frightened of sexuality. My Isabella was going to be a bride of Christ - that costume was actually her wedding dress”

Question 2

Roger Allam

an actor who played the Duke on his interpretation of the final scene

Answer 2

the final scene “felt as if I was subjecting them, Isabella, Angelo and Mariana, to some kind of ordeal by fire…. this sequence as a whole had the ritual of purification”

Question 3

Samuel Johnson

Angelo’s final punishment

Answer 3

“Angelo’s crimes were such as must sufficiently justify punishment… and I believe every reader feels some indignation when he finds him spared”

Question 4

early reception

Answer 4

earliest critics of MFM were somewhat stunned by this strange, complex and dark play

some were even offended and embarrassed by its depiction of both illicit and coercive sexuality

many were unhappy with the final judgement on Angelo, believing he should have been severely punished rather than spared (Samuel Johnson)

one problem that many early critics found was that there was a lack of characters they could wholeheartedly admire, it was felt that they ought to be able to approve of the Duke and Isabella but their behaviour may this near impossible

Question 5

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

early reception of the play

Answer 5

Coleridge called the play “a hateful work” and agreed that the ending was morally unsatisfactory

“our feelings of justice are grossly wounded by Angelo’s escape”

“Isabella contrives to be amiable…. Claudio is detestable”

Question 6

William Hazlitt

19th-century criticism: unlikeable characters

Answer 6

Hazlitt also found the main characters dislikable, stating that “our sympathies are repulsed”

he argued that the Duke is “more absorbed in his own plots and gravity than anxious for the welfare of the state”

he also said that Isabella’s “rigid chastity” is unappealing

Question 7

A. C. Swinburne

19th-century criticism

Answer 7

expressed dissatisfaction with the play’s resolution

Question 8

George Bernard Shaw

20th-century criticism

Answer 8

MFM resonates with the modern period due to its themes which transcend through history

George Bernard Shaw stated that the play is “ready and willing to start at the twentieth century”

Question 9

the themes of MFM appealing to the 20th-century audiences

Answer 9

the themes of MFM have appealed to the sceptical 20th century

the decline of religion and the changing attitudes towards gender and sexuality in the 20th century have heightened the play’s philosophical and dramatic strength

modern audiences seem more willing to accept the play’s ambiguities and darker moral themes

Question 10

20th-century views towards the Duke

Answer 10

MFM dramatises authoritarian oppression; the Duke’s undercover surveillance of his people and the Christian morality that regards sex as guilt both keep the population of Vienna under a sinister form of ideological control

the Duke’s surveillance can be seen as a version of the 19th-century Panopticon, an invention of a vantage point from which a large area can be surveilled and controlled

few modern critics have positive views of the Duke

Question 11

20th-century feminist perspective

Answer 11

challenge the stereotypical characterisation of women in the play

Isabella may seem to resist such stereotypes by being assertive and determined, but this makes her dislikeable to audiences (her punishment)

she is also reduced to silence and submission by the end of the play, becoming a pawn in the Duke’s grand strategy, symbolising patriarchal control and the silencing of the female voice

Question 12

Daniel Massey

his view on Isabella’s dilemma, helps the audience sympathise with her and her dilemma

Answer 12

“in such an atmosphere, a dilemma such as Isabella faces… condemn herself to eternal damnation but save her brother’s life, is seething with painful irony and hair raising moral danger”

Question 13

Andrew Sanders

the title

Answer 13

“as its title suggests, Measure for Measure offers a series of juxtapositions rather than coalescences”

(between justice and mercy, power and responsibility, liberty and restraint, sexual desire and conscience, appearance and reality, etc)

Question 14

John Mortimer

Answer 14

“a great play doesn’t answer questions, it asks them”

Question 15

Andrew Sanders

measure for measure as a dark and ambiguous play

Answer 15

“Measure for Measure is a play of dark corners, hazy margins, and attempts at rigid definition”

“it poses the necessity of passing moral judgement while demonstrating that all judgement is relative”

Question 16

Peter Kirwan

relevance of the play

Answer 16

the play’s “concern with social policy and urban governance continues to find more echoes around the world, making Shakespeare’s view of the city one of his most enduringly contemporary achievements”

Question 17

Daniel Massey

Shakespeare’s fascination with power

Answer 17

“power, in all its manifestations, fascinated Shakespeare… not just the symbol of power, but much more importantly, the human face behind it”

Question 18

Mike Pennington

the Duke’s journey of self-discovery

Answer 18

“there must be this journey for the Duke… he comes to learn something about true government, about justice, about the entire system by which he has governed and lived, he now has to question all that”

Question 19

F. R. Leavis

the Duke

Answer 19

“directing the action from above, his attitude is meant to be ours - his total attitude, which is the total attitude of the play”

Question 20

Juliet Stevenson

the need to support, rather than criticise Isabella

Answer 20

“the audience should recognise Isabella’s dilemma as opposed to merely observing her in critical detachment… otherwise the audience will not really be challenged by the play”

“the production… has to support Isabella”

Question 21

Michael Billington

Angelo’s transition throughout the play

Answer 21

“at first, he seems a shy bureaucrat astonished by his promotion… but he visibly grows in authority and then finds himself poleaxed when Isabella comes to plead for her brother’s life”

Question 22

Michael Billington

2010 Almeida Theatre production

Answer 22

“Rory Kinnear is outstanding… Where most Angelos are propelled by lust, Kinnear’s is smitten by love”

“he sighs that Isabella may see him ‘at any time’ and studiously swaps his specs for contact lenses to make a good impression”

“this doesn’t excuse the sexual bargain he proposes: what it does do is suggest that Angelo is a man floundering in unfamiliar emotional territory”

Question 23

Michael Pennington

Angelo’s sexuality

Answer 23

Angelo is “a very efficient and competent career man but who knows nothing at all about himself sexually and is very much out of touch with that side of his personality”

“So when his sexuality is triggered, it is of a very adolescent and uncertain kind”

Question 24

Michael Pennington

Angelo’s crime

Answer 24

“Angelo’s crime is not what he thinks it is. He thinks it is desiring a saint, whereas it is a political crime; it is a monstrous abuse of his position… I think the crux of his downfall is political”

Question 25

David Tennant's Angelo

Answer 25

David Tennant's Angelo, in a 1997 documentary, was very violent; grabbing Isabella, pushing her to the floor and climbing on top of her

Question 26

Mark Rylance (played the Duke in the 2004 Globe Theatre production) (playing MFM as a comedy in the 2004 Globe production)

Answer 26

"playing Measure for Measure as a comedy was a bit of a risk; over the last fifty years, the play's tragedy has been emphasised more frequently than the humour" "but we thought it's been written down as a comedy, so maybe we should trust that that's what Shakespeare wanted it to be" "we tried to play the story as a thriller, full of well-laid plans that go slightly awry but come good eventually"

Question 27

the 2004 Globe Theatre production

Answer 27

the 2004 Globe production was very comedic and focused more on the comedic aspects of the play rather than the dark tragedy the Duke at the beginning of Act 1, Scene 3 was carried on stage hidden in a laundry basket, this explained how he had escaped to the friary as he stood up he was covered in women's underwear, suggesting to Friar Thomas that the "dribbling dart of love" may have gotten him into this situation the Duke is not one of the obviously comedic characters but Mark Rylance demonstrates that he can be played humorously - his preoccupation with other people slandering him can easily be ridiculed and scenes like when he tries to persuade Barnadine to allow himself to be executed can be highly comedic Mark Rylance's Duke was a floundering, disorganised and clown-like figure who constantly let his plans go awry

Question 28

Roger Allam | the Duke's soliloquy in Act 3, Scene 1, his bleak speech on death

Answer 28

"his sense of self has fragmented into "many a thousand grains" of dust... he realises completely his own sceptical fatalism. But somehow this can only be expressed through someone else's situation"

Question 29

Juliet Stevenson | the significance of language and verse

Answer 29

“his rhythms, his pauses… there is a pulse in the verse that will tell you as much about the character as anything she says”

Question 30

critical history: how was the play first received?

Answer 30

the subject matter and the complex characters made Measure for Measure an uncomfortable play to watch when it was first performed after its first recorded performance in 1604, there are no further records of performances until 1660 when the low-life scenes and the emphasis on sex were cut in order to make the play more acceptable to audiences additionally, productions tended to focus heavily on the happy ending and often added elements of romance between the Duke and Isabella, perhaps to compensate for the dark contents of the play the themes of sexual corruption and the hypocrisy of the ruling class were unacceptable to a Victorian audience and so the play remained largely inside the covers of the book rather than acted out on a stage

Question 31

John Dryden | in the 17th century, Dryden dismissed the play as...

Answer 31

“grounded on impossibilities, or at least so meanly written, that the comedy neither caused your mirth, nor the serious part your concernment”

Question 32

G Wilson Knight | the Duke as a divine, Christ-like figure

Answer 32

he saw the Duke as the prophet of universal forgiveness and mercy, pointing out that he is “compared to the Supreme Power” and puts into practice the teachings of Jesus

Question 33

Kenneth Tynan | Peter Brook’s 1950 production

Answer 33

Peter Brook’s 1950 production was the first to explore different ways of interpreting the text Kenneth Tynan wrote that the “grisly parade of cripples and deformities which Pompey introduces in that leprous Viennese gaol” adds to the “ghastly comedy”

Question 34

J C Trewin | Peter Brook's 1950 production

Answer 34

J C Trewin wrote that Brook asked the actress playing Isabella to wait as long as she felt the audience could stand it before she knelt to plead for Angelo’s life “On some nights it would extend to two minutes… it was a silence in which all the inevitable elements of the evening came together, a silence in which the abstract notion of mercy became concrete”

Question 35

Jane Williamson | the Duke being presented as a God-like figure

Answer 35

she points out that in the early 1960s, productions “began, increasingly, to present the Duke as the semi-allegorical God-like figure”

Question 36

Tyrone Guthrie | his 1966 production at the Bristol Old Vic

Answer 36

Tyrone Guthrie argues that the Duke is a “figure of Almighty God; a stern and crafty father to Angelo, a stern but kind father to Claudio, an elder brother to the Provost" "to Isabella, first a loving father and eventually the Heavenly Bridegroom to whom at the beginning of the play she was betrothed”

Question 37

John Barton’s 1970 RSC production

Answer 37

it was not until John Barton’s RSC production in 1970 that the happy ending was challenged and Isabella was left alone on stage at the end this was a turning point for the play and since then, productions have explored the many different interpretations offered by the text

Question 38

1987 RSC production

Answer 38

productions have been imaginative in their attempts to stress the play’s relevance to the modern world for example, in the 1987 RSC production, Roger Allam points out that “most of our whores were rent-boys… working a gents’ toilet that rose from the floor" "this was our attempt to de-anaesthetise the cliched presentation of prostitutes in Shakespeare’s plays, and thus shock and awaken our audience anew to the meaning of the scene”

Question 39

Trevor Nunn | the psychological drama inherent in the play and its contemporary relevance

Answer 39

“Think of the Guildford Four or the Birmingham Six. An eminent judge can argue that it doesn’t matter if innocent individuals suffer as long as the idea of the law is upheld and kept pure" "the distinction between law and justice is on every page of Measure for Measure" "...think of the immediate scepticism that greets Isabella when she accuses Angelo in the last scene. You can’t open a newspaper without it being asked whether the victim of a rape can be believed when she says she did nothing to encourage it" "And then… the permissive society… You think ‘I do not believe that this play was written in 1604’”

Question 40

Marjorie Garber | cramped and claustrophobic spaces

Answer 40

Marjorie Garber points out that the play is full of cramped and claustrophobic spaces: a nunnery, a monastery, a dungeon, a farmhouse surrounded by a moat, and so on Garber goes on to argue that each of these confining spaces is "a sign of a set of other enclosures: virginity and chastity; brotherhood and obedience; even death"

Question 41

Darryl Gless | the Duke and God

Answer 41

the Duke “acts in a way analogous to God"

Question 42

Juliet Stevenson | Isabella's sensuality

Answer 42

Isabella "recognises her own sensuality and the need to apply strict control over it"

Question 43

Roger Allam | the Duke exploiting others for his own gain

Answer 43

the Duke "constantly uses other people”

Question 44

Roger Allam | the final act

Answer 44

Act V is a "ritual of purification"

Question 45

William Hazlitt | the Duke as self-centred and self-absorbed

Answer 45

the Duke is "more absorbed in his own plots and gravity than anxious for the welfare of the state"

Question 46

J. W. Lever | sexual undertones in Isabella' speech

Answer 46

Isabella is "inadvertently suggestive"

Question 47

Cox | Isabella's absolutism and extremism

Answer 47

Isabella holds "absolute positions"

Question 48

Marcia Reifer | Isabella's reduction to a pawn in the Duke's grand strategy, she gradually loses her assertiveness

Answer 48

Isabella suffers a "gradual loss of autonomy"

Question 49

G. Wilson Knight | the Duke represents...

Answer 49

the Duke represents the "divine principles of justice and mercy"

Question 50

Wharton | Angelo's name

Answer 50

Angelo's "very name contradicts with his own desires"

Question 51

Lewis | prevailing image of the play

Answer 51

scales of justice are the prevailing image of the play

Question 52

Rosalind Miles | positive view of the Duke

Answer 52

the Duke is a "kindly father” and an “ultimate benevolent authority figure"

Question 53

Juliet Stevenson | evil in powerful men

Answer 53

the play illustrates an "electable evil in man"

Question 54

Dr Barrie Saywood | the play as a debate

Answer 54

"it's a debate, issues are represented through contending voices"

Question 55

Dr Barrie Saywood | the characters

Answer 55

"none of the characters escape criticism of some kind"

Question 56

Richard Dutton | Angelo and Isabella

Answer 56

“Angelo and Isabella are strikingly similar”

Question 57

Northrop Frye | Angelo

Answer 57

"Angelo is...the most contemptible kind of hypocrite”

Question 58

F. R. Leavis | Angelo

Answer 58

"We should see ourselves in Angelo”

Question 59

Lisa Hopkins | marriage in the play

Answer 59

marriage is the "main justification" for the play being classed as a comedy but it "very rarely" provides comic closure because the audience is forced to question the "problematic" way marriage is treated

Question 60

Harriet Hawkins | Isabella and Angelo

Answer 60

Isabella is the "feminine counterpart of Angelo...not only in her professed hatred of sex but in her underlying keen appetite"

Question 61

Barbara J. Baines | Isabella's silence

Answer 61

Isabella is "not silenced but, instead, chooses silence as a form of resistance to the patriarchal authority"

Question 62

Darryl Gless | Angelo's ultimatum

Answer 62

"Angelo's ultimatum is crueller than rape...if raped, Isabella would be sinless"

Question 63

Maurice Charney | Lucio

Answer 63

Lucio is the "ultimate truth-teller"

Question 64

Jonathan Bate | Angelo

Answer 64

Angelo is "one of the few characters that can self-analyse in an honest way"

Question 65

Darryl Gless | Angelo equating sexual surrender with Christ's sacrifice

Answer 65

Angelo "invites her to equate, sexual surrender, with Christ's sacrifice for mankind" he tries to appeal to her puritanical nature and to manipulate her in to having sex with him, by offering her a chance to act Christ-like

Question 66

David Lloyd Stevenson | Isabella

Answer 66

Isabella “is the living antidote to all human charity” even though she is religious and dedicated to charity, she doesn't show human compassion and is cold and unfeeling

Question 67

G. Wilson Knight | Mistress Overdone and Isabella

Answer 67

there is "more humanity in the charity of Mistress Overdone than in Isabella...condemning her own brother to death with venomed words in order to preserve her own chastity" whereas Mistress Overdone keeps Kate Keepdown’s child after she falls pregnant and Lucio abandons her

Question 68

G. Wilson Knight | Angelo's sexual desire

Answer 68

"sexual desire has long been an anathema to [Angelo]... so his warped idealism forbids any healthy love"

Question 69

Jonathan Dallimore | ideological control

Answer 69

the Duke's "undercover surveillance and Christian morality that stigmatises sex as guilt combines to keep the populace under a sinister form of ideological control"

Question 70

Uma Ellis-Fermor | Isabella's coldnes, but also her determined and strong-willed nature

Answer 70

Isabella is "hard as an icicle"

Question 71

Josephine Bennet | Isabella’s speech in Act V

Answer 71

“Wonderful...broken lines and simple, abrupt phrasing suggests how hard they are to say”

Question 72

Samuel Taylor Coleridge | Angelo

Answer 72

"Angelo's damnable baseness cannot be forgiven"

Question 73

Glynn Austin | the Duke

Answer 73

"despite adding satisfaction to the play, the Duke is deceitful"

Question 74

Joan Robbins | female characters

Answer 74

"female characters are to a disturbing degree restricted and manipulated by their male counterparts"

Question 75

Daryll Gless | Isabella's arrogance

Answer 75

"Isabella shows spiritual arrogance"

Question 76

Paola Dionisotti | Isabella is not naive

Answer 76

Isabella is "innocent, not naive"

Question 77

Brian Gibbons | Pompey

Answer 77

"Pompey challenges legal and religious concepts of society"

Question 78

Charles Marowitz | Isabella

Answer 78

"Isabella (is a) helpless pawn"

Question 79

Penelope Wilton | Isabella

Answer 79

"(Isabella) is a religious maniac"

Question 80

Charlotte Lennox

Answer 80

“tortures it into a comedy” “this play therefore being absolutely defective in a due distribution of rewards and punishments”