extended commentary on act 2 scene 2

Question 1

key point: 1

Answer 1

this first meeting between Angelo and Isabella is remarkable for its use of language and rhythm to convey the intensity of the relationship which is so quickly forged between the two protagonists

Question 2

key point: 2

Answer 2

a freer use of the blank verse line, as here in this scene, is often seen as a sign of Shakespeare’s increasing poetic flexibility as his earlier plays tend to have more complete and end-stopped verse lines, and a higher proportion of rhyme, than his later ones where prose and a more elastic use of blank verse tend to dominate

Question 3

key point: 3

Answer 3

the dynamic between Angelo and Isabella can be discerned simply by looking at the shape of the scene on the printed page, and in particular at the pattern of lines in which the metre, almost like the baton in a relay race, swaps between two speakers

Question 4

key point: 4

Answer 4

Isabella’s first two speeches leave a gap in which Angelo inserts a terse question. It is almost as if the incomplete pentameter forces Angelo to reply, leaving a measurable silence in the metre of the line which he has to fill up

Question 5

key point: 5

Answer 5

Later in the scene the roles are reversed as Isabella completes Angelo’s lines. In Line 51, the position of the words in the pentameter undermines their stated meaning: while the words themselves speak of certainty and finality, the rhythm is half-finished, leaving a space in which Isabella can - metrically must - reopen the argument

Question 6

key point: 6

Answer 6

The metrical space serves to prolong the interview: although Angelo’s words say that there is no room for argument over Claudio’s sentence, he does not, at some level, want to dismiss her entirely. At one point he tries to evade the logic of the completed pentameter, following her half- line (line 55) by assertively beginning a new line (line 56)

Question 7

key point: 7

Answer 7

At another point she seems to expect some reply to her incomplete line (line 63) and when no intervention from Angelo is forthcoming, she has to take a deep breath and start another phrase

Question 8

key point: 8

Answer 8

the battle between them is thus conducted through control of the language and metre of their altercation, and the ways in which their language comes together to form the pentameters of blank verse suggests a definite relationship between them

Question 9

key point: 9

Answer 9

the language of this extract therefore demonstrates the extent to which each is intensely aware of the other. they are circling round each other, almost dancing, locked together in the rhythms of argument and debate

Question 10

key point: 10

Answer 10

Lucio’s persistent injunctions to her to warm up are never directly answered or acknowledged: the pair hardly seem to notice his presence, or that of the Provost

Question 11

key point: 11

Answer 11

Perhaps it is no wonder that Angelo finds the encounter so stimulating, as he reveals in his soliloquy at the end of the scene: the back-and-forth of their exchange has a kind of sensuous energy

Question 12

key point: 12

Answer 12

Juliet Stevenson, who played Isabella at the RSC in 1983 has described the language in this scene as ‘erotic’, suggesting ‘[Isabella] and Angelo have been copulating across the verse ever since they met’. How far Isabella is aware of this sexual current is a question for performance

Question 13

key point: 13

Answer 13

As well as the erotics of this encounter, this scene dramatises some of the extremes of the play’s ethical framework

Question 14

key point: 14

Answer 14

At first, Angelo tries to hide behind a formal, impersonal concept of the law. (line 48), but Isabella wrong-foots him into taking responsibility for the decision. By introducing the insistent first-person, Isabella puts the onus on Angelo, the man standing before her, rather than on some abstracted and intangible legal function. Line 51 is an unwilling concession in which Angelo recognises that he is personally responsible, and Isabella uses this as a weakened point in his resistance, seizing on the possibility of working a further concession

Question 15

key point: 15

Answer 15

Her prime weapon is the emotive figure of substitution: she repeatedly invites, even demands, that Angelo see the situation from different viewpoints, that he imagine himself in a different role (lines 64, 67-68, 75-77)

Question 16

key point: 16

Answer 16

Angelo tries to reinstate some distance between his private position and his public position (line 80): like the Duke in 1.3 he is hesitant around his personal responsibility, preferring to present the law as separate and autonomous

Question 17

key point: 17

Answer 17

Isabella also works on Angelo by taking up his words and giving them new meanings. She turns his terms of earthly justice, that Claudio (line 71), and ups the moral stakes by transforming them into spiritual ones (line 73), so that the repetition of the word makes Claudio and Angelo equal with all the rest of sinful humanity

Question 18

key point: 18

Answer 18

She presents the case for mercy as the requisite of the great ruler. After a shaky start (lines 35-36) is awkwardly phrased, and it seems that Angelo will be able to brush her off without difficulty. His rhetorical question (line 37) exposes the weakness of her opening salvo, and she is ready to give up

Question 19

key point: 19

Answer 19

Urged on by Lucio, however, her arguments gain in eloquence and passion: Angelo has relatively little to say for himself in this early part of their encounter

Question 20

key point: 20

Answer 20

What is clear, however, is the erotic and philosophic concentration of their meeting, as the scene continues to dramatise a relationship which creates a palpable electric energy