Measure for Measure
"How would you be, If He, which is the top of judgement, should
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Questions
(1) What is the significance of the play's title?
(2) What are the symbolic overtones of some of the names of characters in this play?
(3) What elements of melodrama exist in the play?
(4) Why does the Friar allow Isabella to believe that her brother has indeed been
executed by Angelo's orders, when in reality he has not been?
(5) Isabella is a character of central importance to the play. How are we to
evaluate her character? How are we to judge Isabella's attitude expressed in her
comment "More than our brother is our chastity"--within the context of the entire
play?
(6) Although Isabella and Angelo are antagonists throughout the play, in some ways
they are like. What attitudes do they share?
(7) Do any of the characters in this play have a "Providential" role, somewhat like
that of Portia in The Merchant of Venice?
(8) Love has been a repeated theme in Shakespeare's plays, as it is here. What
topics related to love does he deal with in this play? Is his treatment of love here
different from the other plays we have read?
(9) What kinds of corruptions exist within the world of the play? What do all these
corruptions have fundamentally in common?
(10) Shakespeare in many of his plays seems to point out various kinds of human
frailties. What human frailties does he make us aware of in this play?
(11) Do Isabella's view of judgment, and her understanding of the relationship
between justice and mercy change during the course of the play? If so, how?
(12) How good a ruler is/has been the Duke? Judging from the play as a whole, what
attitude does Shakespeare seem to recommend as desirable in a good ruler?
(13) What is your reaction to the ending of the play? This play is traditionally
classified as a tragicomedy. Does the ending adequately qualify the play to be called
a comedy? How close does it come to being a tragedy? By what means is tragedy
averted in this play?
(14) How are the marriages at the end of this play different from the marriages at
the ends of the other comedies we have read? What is the role of the minor characters
at the end of this play, and how does what happens to them reflect on what happens to
the major characters at the end?
(15) What kind[s] of temptation present themselves in this play? Which are the most
insidious? Which are the easiest to resist?
(16) What motives prompt the truly merciful actions in this play? What motives
prompt the actions that are designed to strictly administer justice?
(17) How does an individual's own code of right and wrong affect the way he or she
judges others in this play? In other words, how does the criteria by which an
individual judges himself or herself influence his or her criteria for judging others?
(18) How does the Biblical injunction to "judge not that ye be not judged" apply to
the characters and actions in this play? What different criteria do the various
characters use in this play to judge their own actions and the actions of others?
(19) What kinds of injustices and abuses of the law exist in this play? How many of
them can be righted by earthly authority? How many of them cannot?
(20) How are we to interpret the actions of the representative of law in this play,
the Duke, later disguised as the Friar? To what extent is law criticized in this
play? To what extent is it held up as necessary? Does the same law/grace distinction
(Old Testament/New Testament, also) that we discussed in The Merchant of Venice apply
in this play as well?
(21) How does earthly justice compare with divine justice in this play?
(22) Think about the theme of justice vs. mercy in this play. What is the
relationship between these two ideals in the actual world of the play? Does
Shakespeare seem to be recommending an ideal relationship between the two that is not
fully carried out in the play? What does the ending of the play, especially, suggest
about the relationship between justice and mercy? How does Shakespeare's treatment of
these issues compare with his treatment of them in The Merchant of Venice?
(23) In what way[s] is this play a comment on the theme of moderation vs. excess?
(24) In what way[s] does this play provide a comment on the theme of self-knowledge?
(25) Would you classify this play as "Christian"? As "orthodox" in its dealing with
questions about ethical behavior and Christianity?
Here are even more study questions from Prof. J. M. Massi!
More study questions from Prof. Hadorn . . .
Resources
Dunbar Barton, Shakespeare and the Law (Boston: Houghton, 1929) [PR 3028 .B3].
N. W. Bawcutt, "The Duke Vs. Angelo in Measure for Measure," in Shakespeare Survey,
37 (1984), 89-98 [Ref: PR 2888 .C3].
Black, James. "The Unfolding of Measure for Measure," in Shakespeare Survey, 26
(1973), 119-28 [Ref: PR 2888 .C3].
Coghill, "Comic Form in Measure for Measure," in Shakespeare Survey, 8 (1954), 14-27
[Ref: PR 2888 .C3].
Harold Fisch, "Shakespeare and the Puritan Dynamic," in Shakespeare Survey, 27
(1974), 81-92 [Ref: PR 2888 .C3].
Clifford Leech, "The 'Meaning' of Measure for Measure" in Shakespeare: The
Comedies, ed. Muir , pp. 109-18 [RES: Personal Copy].
Steele, Kenneth, "'This falles out better, then I could deuise':
Play-Bound Playwrights
and the Nature of Shakespearean Comedy" (University of Toronto, 1990)
Links
Collations from the Padua Prompt-Book of Measure for Measure (University of Virginia)
Schneider, Ben, compiler. A List of Pre-eminent Ethical Treatises of the 16th Century (Lawrence University, Appleton, WI
August 1994)
Paintings based on the play from the Emory University collection
Vincentio’s Fraud:
Boundary and Chaos, Abstinence and Orgy in Measure for Measure by Brian Holloway
Tuttle, Marni, Social Mobility in Shakespearean Comedy (University of Leeds, 1995)