measure for measure critical quotes Flashcards
what does Dr Johnson say readers feel when Angelo is spared
“Every reader feels some indignation when Angelo is spared.”
George Bernard Shaw shakespeare is ahead of the 17th century
“In Measure for Measure Shakespeare is ready and willing to start at the twentieth century if only the seventeenth would let him.”
Northrop Frye on angelo hypocrisy
“Angelo is…the most contemptible kind of hypocrite.”
Leavis the relatable traits of angelo
“We should see ourselves in Angelo.”
Dollimore- angelos presentation
Angelo is a presentation of “ authoritarian repression.”
Josephine Waters Bennett on isabellas flaws
Isabella’s flaws arise from the her inexperience.
Daryl Gless on Isabella’s spiritual arrogance
Isabella’s preoccupation with her chastity shows
“ spiritual arrogance.”
Rosalind Miles the Duke as a leader
” Ultimate benevolent authority figure”, “kindly father”, “deep moral seriousness of his role”
Hazlitt on the Dukes failings as a leader
The Duke is “more absorbed in his own plots than anxious for the welfare of the state.”
H.R.Coursen on the duke’s image
The Duke is vain, interested in “image mongering”.
David Lloyd Stevenson James 1 and the duke
The play was written partly to flatter James 1 as the Duke is based on many of his attributes.
Tebbetts on shakespeares intentions of comparing james 1 to the duke
The play is based on James but intended to be a sly , subversive attack on the monarch.
William Empson- Duke
“The whole business of public justice is fatuous and hideous.”
Wilbur Dunkel- Duke
“His disguise must not be taken seriously.”
W.W. Lawrence- Duke
“He is essentialy a puppet”
G. Wilson Knight- Duke
“The Duke’s original leniancy is shown to be right”
Robert N Watson marriage
“Marriage as (a) instrument for controlling desire.”
Wilbur Dunkel- the Duke and Isabella
“She gives into the Duke’s immoral bed trick plan because”-“a holy man advises her to do so”
Leavis- Angelo
“He was placed in a position calculated to actualise his worst potentialities.”
Phillip Brookbank on tricks
“The tricks are played to a saving purpose.”
L.C Knights- Angelo
“Angelo’s temptations and fall finely enforces the need for self knowledge and sympathy which seems to be the central moral of the play.”
G. Wilson Knight- Angelo
“Chief faults are self-deception and pride in his own rightousness.”
William Empson- Angelo
“Her coldness, even her rationality, is what excited him.”
William Empson- Context
“There was a strand of loathing for sexuality in any form.”
L. C. knights - Context
“Social forms were being undermined by new forces.
G. Wilson Knight- Isabella
“Isabella has no real affection for Claudio.”
G. Wilson Knight what the characters stand for
“Isabella stands for sainted purity, Angelo for pharisaical righteousness, the Duke… enlightened ethic. Lucio represents indecent wit, Pompey and Mistress Overdone professional immorality. Barnardine is hard headed, criminal insensitiveness .”
Irene McGarity- Isabella
“Holding a hollow sculpture of virtue to hide inside of.”
Wilbur Dunkel- Lucio
“The function of Lucio is to keep us informed and unite the characters.”
L. C. Knights- lower class
“Follow their impulses without scrumple of restraint” - “shakespeares sympathy for scoundrels.”
Andrew Sanders the play
“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.”
Lisa Hopkins marriage
Marriage is the “main justification” for the play being classed as a comedy. It “very rarely” provides comic closure because the audience is forced to question the “problematic” way marriage is treated.
Hampton-Reeves political play
“The play is tightly bound up with the cultural politics of 1604.”
R.W. Maslen tragi-comedy
“Tragedy dealt with times that were safely past… Comedy, by contrast, dealt with the dangerous past.”
Hampton-Reeves authority
“We see characters fretting about the nature of authority and suffering when authority is misapplied.”
Katherine Maus angelo
“Angelo is sexually aroused by prohibition.”
Jonathan Dallimore the dukes control
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”
G. Wilson Knight the duke
The Duke “represents a divine principle of justice and mercy”
Darryl Gless duke is god like
The Duke “acts in a way analogous to God”
David Lloyd Stevenson james and the duke
Of the “He who the sword of heaven shall bear” speech - “It is a speech which fully reflects James’ own exalted sense of a character of a ruler such as himself”
Uma Ellis-Fermor isabella
Isabella is “hard as an icicle”
Ms. Jameson isabella
Isabella is like a “stately and graceful cedar” incapable of any “possible lapse in virtue”
Harriet Hawkins isabella and angelo
Isabella is the “feminine counterpart of Angelo…not only in her professed hatred of sex but in her underlying keen appetite”
Barbara J. Baines isabella’s silence
Isabella is “not silenced but, instead, chooses silence as a form of resistance to the patriarchal authority”
Juliet Stevenson isabella’s sexuality
Isabella “recognises her own sensuality and the need to apply strict control over it”
Josephine Bennet isabella’s speech in act 5
Of Isabella’s speech in Act V - “wonderful…broken lines and simple, abrupt phrasing suggests how hard they are to say”
Wharton- Angelo
Angelo’s “very name contradicts with his own desires…far from the unmistakable association with Puritanism”
David Holbrook angelo
Angelo is a “sex maniac”
Hans Sachs angelo
“The outstanding trait of [Angelo’s] character is cruelty…pursues [normal forms of sexuality] with such cold hate”
Darryl Gless angelo
“Angelo’s ultimatum is crueller than rape…if raped, Isabella would be sinless”
Rosalind Miles angelo sililoquay
the “babble of terrified questions, the broken rhythms” in Angelo’s soliloquies connote the “the sheer surprise of the discovery for him”
Maurice Charney lucio
Lucio is the “ultimate truth-teller”
Elizabeth Pope lucio
Lucio is “gallant and agreeable”
Matthew Winston lucio
Compares Lucio to Lucifer
L. Schleiner the duke
The Duke is “a man of tests”
Jonathan Bate angelo
Angelo is “one of the few characters that can self-analyse in an honest way”
Jonathan Bate angelo
Angelo is excited by Isabella’s “mind and tongue at work”
Rosalind Miles isabella and angelos lust
Isabella “is precisely the one type of woman who would arouse Angelo’s repressed and sadistic lust”
Wharton- isabella mercy and justice
“Isabella makes mercy supersede mere justice by her unvengeful and sacrificial pardon of him”
what does F.R. Leavis say about Isabella?
“Isabella can exhibit a contempt of death because of the exaltation of her faith”
what does Irene McGarrity say about Isabella’s virtue?
she is “holding a hollow sculpture of virtue to hide inside of.”
what does Northrop Frye say about Isabella’s desire to join the convent?
it’s “prompted more by an adolescent girl’s fear of the world than by a genuine volition”
what does marion woodman say about Isabella’s outcomes of sleeping with angelo
it would have led to “differentiation from her own deluded omnipotence”
what does G. Wilson Knight say about Isabella and her brother’s relationship
“Isabella has no real affection for claudio”
what does W.W. Lawrence say about Isabella’s heavenly and yielding smile
“I do not think there is any doubt that Isabella turns to him with a heavenly and yielding smile”
according to Paola Dionisotti what does Isabella crave
“Isabella craves simplicity and order and certainty- her belief, but is faced with confusion and contradiction-humanity”
what does Juliet Stevenson say about Isabella’s sensuality
she “recognises her own sensuality and the need to apply strict control over it. I don’t think she’s frightened or surprised by it; she wants to dominate it “
what does Emma Smith think about the statement ‘more than our brother is our chastity’
it “is a formal statement of belief, rather than an inner revelation of feeling”
what does emma smith say about Isabella’s character
“has this awkward, self-assured character been assimilated into a romantic conclusion or does she remain resolved to follow her own path”
what does Ken Lasnoski say about Isabella and her wanting mercy
“Isabella wanted Angelo dead, and justly so. However if she ever desires mercy upon her brother, she must experience a conversation to mercy in her own heart, a conversation to mercy in her own heart, a conversation that extends mercy to her enemies.”
