The Duke Critics Flashcards
What does Declan Donnelan say about the Duke exploring Vienna?
Rulers were referred to as the place they ruled, so the Duke of Vienna = ‘Vienna’, so when the Duke explores Vienna, he is exploring himself.
What does Wasson say the Duke knows has led to the corruption in Vienna?
‘He knows that his own merciful nature has led to the corruption of Vienna’
What does Wasson say of Shakespeare’s interpretation of justice?
‘clearly Aristotelian. ‘
According to Magedanz what does the Duke finally adopt in his reading of justice?
‘The hybrid standard the Duke adopts is finally neither pure justice nor pure mercy, but equity’
-This links back to Aristotle who begins Nicomachean Ethics in this way of defining equity as making exceptions in certain circumstances.
Nathan in his article “The Marriage of Duke and Isabella” states what about their marriage?
That it is designed to fit the notions of the wife a Duke should have as prescribed in “King’s Gift”- one of James’s works on statecraft
Everett says the Duke at the end spends…
‘spends the last few hundred lines dealing out justice like a man with a pack of cards”
Vincentio means?
Conqueror
What does Paul Cheetham say about the Duke’s confidence in Angelo?
‘the Duke while pretending to have total confidence in Angelo, clearly implies that rigid application of the law by fallible human beings is indefensible.’
What does Marian Cox say the Duke must learn?
‘The Duke has to learn to moderate his private studies with his public duties, his status as a ruler with his needs as a man.’
What does Marian Cox say the Duke’s practice of assessing others is?
‘he demonstrates that his practice is metaphorically to weigh humans to assess their moral gravity’
What did Peter Pick say about the Duke and power?
‘Power, a sort of mental sadism, which is Angelo’s aphrodisiac, is also the Duke’s addiction’
What does Goldberg say about the Duke’s exchange?
‘He exchanges political authority for religious authority; he exchanges power over the people’s public actions for power over their private actions.’
Almost playing God
What does Schlegel say about the Duke and his subjects?
‘He has more pleasure in overhearing his subjects than governing them.’
What does Marian Cox say about the final scene?
‘The final scene of the play is both the convening of a court and a symbolic Day of Judgement’
What does Patsy Hall say about the Duke being an ineffectual leader?
‘An ineffectual leader has left his people in the hands of a moral zealot with the authority to execute laws that the leader himself has squirmed from upholding.’
