problem plays that make me want to bang my head against the wall but in a good way. does some of it suck? yes. but the parts that don't hit so hard it's unreal.

Measure For Measure is one of those Shakespearean plays that doesn't fall into a state of quietness after the first reading. It is so intricate and quotable and meaningful that even reading a line twice gives something new. It is too troublesome to be called a comedy and yet, comedy it is. I have read a few of the Shakespearean comedies, but an underlying dark theme that is a part of this play couldn't be found anywhere. Its ambiguous ending also gave an unsettling time.

Angelo is given the power of the Duke of Vienna in the latter's absence. To not make "a scarecrow of the law", he soughts to bring order back into the city. Thus comes the title Measure For Measure into play - what you give, you shall take back.

This might be my new favorite Shakespeare play. At the very least, it's my favorite of his plays that's not a tragedy. This is an absurd yet oddly serious look at the stupidity of "civilized" laws, laying bare the hypocrisy of many of the people who subscribe to them and punish others for breaking them, and how they so often conflict with people's actual feelings, with possibly tragic results (though those tragic results are not borne out through sheer dumb luck, in this case).

One of his most underrated plays

Come rendere pan per focaccia con teatrale eleganza, per di più tenendo, forse, per sé la fetta più fragrante...

Having read "Measure for Measure" for the first time, I have the feeling it is one of Shakespeare's more subversive plays. It certainly warrants a rereading, and I think there are a myriad of ways to look at this piece.
By the way, I give "Measure for Measure" a 4 star rating compared to other Shakespeare, not to literature as a whole. The Bard is in a class of his own.
Many readers say this is a morality tale, but I don't buy that. Mainly because the morals that most of the characters pretend to have do not translate into their being good people. Rather, I think this play is Shakespeare warning us that a moral code is only powerful if used in decent ways, and even then when we feel the need to impose it on others we are setting ourselves up for a fall.
One of the most interesting aspects of "Measure for Measure" is the character of Duke Vincentio, a character ripe for many interpretations. The Duke is often remembered as the guy who gives a wonderful speech in Act 3:1 to a condemned man in which he utters the famous "Reason thus with life: if I do lose thee, I do lose a thing that none but fools would keep." Frankly I feel that this speech is mainly devoid of any real comfort or content, despite the fact that it is a nihilistic (and perhaps accurate) view of our human nature in regards to death. I say I find it empty because I don't feel like it is the Duke's authentic truth, rather he is spouting off words that he feels he is supposed to say since he is in disguise as a friar at the moment. And that is the key to this play; words devoid of meaning destroy so much of value.
As a reader a lot of my joy in this play came in the exchanges between the bawd Lucio and the disguised Duke. There is a lot to these scenes, more than just the obvious (and funny) humor. In Act 3:2 Shakespeare has written a scene between these two that plays on so many levels. There is a sexual subtext, the disbelief of one friend finding out what another really thinks of him, and the pangs of realizing that a relationship might not be what you thought it was. It gives the readers and the actors a lot to play with.
Lucio is a fun character, an ingratiating slime ball always looking out for number one. He is a joy to read, although I would be loathe to know him in real life. Similarly the Duke is a character I also have mixed feelings about. He can be viewed as a man secretly trying to do good deeds, or as someone quite malevolent and manipulative. Neither character is someone I would trust very far.
Although the themes of "Measure for Measure" are ambiguous at best, and what Shakespeare was trying to do is not easily solidified, the play holds many joys and the reader will experience great glee as they watch the Duke setting up the pious hypocrite Angelo for a comeuppance he richly deserves. Shakespeare also creates a brilliant character named Barnadine, a murderer, who appears in one brief scene. He is a wonderful creation, and ironically, probably the most honest character in the play.
"Measure for Measure" does not deserve the label of a "problem play", so do not let that dissuade you from reading and enjoying it.
As for the Pelican Shakespeare series, they are my favorite editions as the scholarly research is usually top notch and the editions themselves look good as an aesthetic unit. It looks and feels like a play and this compliments the text's contents admirably. The Pelican series was recently reedited and has the latest scholarship on Shakespeare and his time period. Well priced and well worth it.

Merchant of Venice explored the tension between justice and mercy well, but I think this one goes even deeper.

I quite like how Act II, scene i ends with Escalus saying, "But yet, poor Claudio; there is no remedy." Then scene ii has Isabella giving this beautiful speech, my favorite lines in the Shakespearean canon:

Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once,
And He that might the vantage best have took
Found out the remedy. How would you be
If He, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are? O, think on that,
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made.

So there's a description of God figuring out the remedy, and the Duke parallels that throughout the play, actively working to right the situation.

Then in Act V, when Angelo realizes Claudio is still alive, he gets "a quick'ning in his eye." Which I know from my KJV English is a bringing to life. So there at the end, Angelo has his "Like man new made" moment, thanks to mercy.

(Lit Life Patreon SIAY 2023-2024)

Our latest Shakespeare group read on Litsy. It's odd that this is considered one of Shakespeare's better plays. It's mainly provocative, generating frustration from an involved audience or reader. The play centers on a sexual assault, a sleep-with-me-or-else scenario, and a ruling duke playing director, resolving all the problems. But this duke creates problems for the audience. We aren't satisfied. The bad guys aren‘t punished and the good one is strained by dilemma, and then mid-play she becomes a humble role player in the Duke's production. Our good guy is Isabella, a young attractive nun who spends the whole play trying to preserve her chastity in a impossible situation controlled by the surrounding men. The play ends with the duke marrying her...

A more detailed synopsis here: The setting is a Vienna whose general character is captured by the wide spread of syphilis. The ruling Duke takes a leave to visit some other place, and places the city in the hands of the a known extremely upright citizen, Angelo. The Duke doesn't actually leave, he disguises himself as a friar and stays in town to see what will happen. Angelo starts enforcing Vienna's neglected draconian laws, and condemns Claudio to execution for impregnating his unofficial fiancé. Claudio begs his sister Isabella's help. She is becoming a nun in an extreme order of St. Claire. She pleads Claudio's case to Angelo, who, after huffing and puffing about how he's just all about the law, gives Isabella the ultimatum, sleep with me or Claudio dies. Isabella, caught in this dilemma, goes to her brother with the intention of his accepting this as unreasonable, but Claudio wants to live.

At this point the play takes a turn. The Duke in disguise works out resolutions, and then has to figure out what to do when everything starts to go wrong. He becomes something of a harried director, working out how everyone should shake out and then trying to fix whatever backfires. First he uses the bed trick and has Isabella swap herself out with Angelo's own spurned ex-fiancé. (it works) Later he has deal with Angelo's reneging. Instead of releasing Claudio, he moves up his execution to immediate, afraid of Claudio seeking a revenge of honor. In the end the Duke takes off his disguise and places judgment of everyone. No one dies, Angelo is dealt with. Claudio is released, and Isabella's chastity is preserved. And then the Duke slips in that he will marry Isabella.

There are source stories, but Shakespeare manages within the framework for his own purposes. It becomes a look at variations of self righteousness within variations of power and control. Power corrupts. Self-righteousness is flawed. And, the title notes a prominent theme: "Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.", Matthew 7:1-2.

I enjoyed this play, but more it riled me up and led to great conversations in my group. It's not artistic and moving, like say Hamlet, as much as it is upsetting. And the play's history doesn't help. In the 1940's the Duke was popularly viewed as a divine, Jesus-like figure, saving everyone. This view was pushed in a 1948 essay by G. Wilson Knight (included in the Signet edition) and performances followed along. That perspective is practically criminal from some standpoints, including my own expressed here. On the surface to Duke is a good guy. Underneath he's really a kind of monster. He creates the problems and then get what he wants out of it, and gets away with it. I think as an audience we're supposed to see that and be really annoyed. And to have a audience critically buy into him and see him as a Jesus-like hero seems to add another level to what he gets away with. Of course, interpretation is all open to social trends and personal perspectives, including those within our self-identified #metoo era. (I think most contemporary performances are more nuanced and more aware of the display of powerplay, and the abuse of the powerless.)

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43. Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare
originally performed: 1604
format: 223-page Signet Classic
acquired: June
read: Aug 16 – Sep 19
time reading: 14:27, 3.9 mpp
rating: 4
locations: Vienna
about the author: April 23, 1564 – April 23, 1616

Editors
Sankalapuram Nagarajan – editor (c1964, 1988, 1998)
Sylvan Barnet – series editor (c1963, 1988, 1998)
Criticism
G. Wilson Knight – Measure for Measure and the Gospels (1949)
Mary Lascelles – from [[book:Shakespeare's Measure for Measure|766323]Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure] (1953)
Marcia Reifer Poulsen – “Instruments for some more mightier member”: The Constriction of Female Power in Measure for Measure (1984)
Ruth Nevo – Complex Sexuality (1987)
Sankalapuram Nagarajan – Measure for Measure on Stage and Screen (c1964, 1988, 1998)

3.5 stars

Wow. Only Shakespeare could take such an unlikeable bunch of characters and implausible plot and create such an enjoyable play, though a fair lot of the fascination is of the “train wreck” variety – desire to see Angelo get his “just” desserts, amazement at the Duke's stupidity, and disappointment at Isabella's priorities. The scene I really missed was the one where the oh-so-holy Isabella asks Mariana to “fill in” for her with Angelo in order to save Isabella's brother. That was a request that took some gall! I found the concluding “trial” scene rather unsatisfactory, but there are some really beautiful speeches here. I read this in the Folger edition, which has decent size print and fine facing explanatory notes, and listened to the Archangel recording, which is excellent and really brought the play vividly to life.

William Shakespeare znów mnie oczarował swoją historią. "Miarka za miarkę" to kawał bardzo dobrego i mądrego dzieła z przesłaniem. Autor mocno osadził w tej historii swoich bohaterów, dzieląc ich na dobrych i złych. Poza tym dokonał typowego, wręcz stereotypowego podziału na role męskie (faceci prowadzący typowo hulaszcze życie lub obejmujący dostojne stanowiska) i kobiece (matka, żona, ladacznica czy zakonnica). Cała fabuła opiera się na grze i zabawie. Gdyby nie chciwość, nie byłoby akcji. Ta książka pokazuje, czym jest umiejętność przebaczania, dotrzymywanie słowa, ale także uczciwość i wiara we własne czyny. Polecam!

4,75

This isn’t a new favorite and I was initially planning on rating it 3 stars given that my level of engagement was pretty neutral as I read, but the more I sit with it the more impressive I find it. Also, no amount of warnings that ‘it’s not actually a comedy’ could have prepared me for how dark this was, whew.