Week 15, Measure for Measure

Notes on Shakespeare's Measure for Measure

Act 1

As the saying goes, justice must not only be done but it must also be seen to be done – a concession to humanity’s fallen condition since, as Augustine and other great lights of the Christian tradition have said, we are very dependent upon our senses, especially that of sight. The staging or public representation of justice, then, is part of Shakespeare’s concern in this play, and Duke Vincentio has, by his own admission and rather like Prospero in The Tempest, been remiss thanks to his tendency to remain a private man rather than a public man interested in governance. If there is a clear message emerging from the play, I suppose it is that moderation and humility should always be maintained. , although the paradox is that it seems sometimes these virtues can only taught by resorting to extremes. Even virtue can be too extreme – Angelo is too extreme in his “virtuous” application of the law, and when he runs into an extremely good woman in Isabella, he pays the penalty for his hubris.

In spite of his failings, the Duke is at least in principle and insight a good Machiavellian prince – he knows that while in an ideal world, it would be fine to be loved by his subjects, in the real world, some measure of fear is necessary as a means of maintaining public order. Machiavelli’s reason for that prescription, we may recall, is simply that human beings are selfish: they will obey a person they love or admire only so long as it suits their interests. Fear, by contrast, is much more constant in its effects. But of course the Duke has come to this insight rather too late to keep the society in his charge from going off the straight and narrow path. For the sake of righting the imbalance, he delegates the unpleasant task of imposing strict justice to Angelo and (as a second in command) the old lord Escalus.

Shakespeare’s scene and counter-scene structure appears in the very first act of the play – we go from the absolutist Angelo’s pronouncements about inaugurating his reign of impersonal Justice to the seamy underbelly of Vienna in the person of Mistress Overdone, Lucio, and the bawd (pimp) Pompey. Since Mistress Overdone's is the world's oldest profession, it's hard to see how this is the kind of corruption that's going to be cleaned up by a zero-tolerance campaign. Such economies of sin may shift locations, but they don't really go away. Times Square is now cleaner after Mayor Giuliani, but that probably doesn't mean there is less vice in NYC, at least on the whole. It has simply dispersed elsewhere and perhaps become less visible. In other words, we're dealing more with aesthetics than with moral progress.

Claudio's bid for rescue must go through the rascal Lucio to reach the angelic Isabella.

Scene 4 – if you speak you must not show your face. Both persuasion by words and looks would be deadly.

At the end of the second act, the problem seems to be that while Isabella tried to excuse her brother's fault and say it was only common fallen human nature, she conforms to nothing less than the conduct rules of a saint. She excuses herself from sinning to save her brother by being a moral absolutist.

Note on rhetoric: a very important branch of learning and vital practice during the Renaissance. But in this play, rhetoric has a hard time because it is up against primal human drives or tendencies. Isabella speaks virtuous words and sets forth noble sentiments to convince Angelo, but that is not what gets to him. He hears the words, but it is the unbearable combination of virtue and physical beauty that does him in. Her words do not function in the context she wishes they would. Angelo, as well, finds that beating around the bush will not serve him -- he must say what he wants in the ugliest and bluntest possible way, or the virtuous Isabella simply cannot understand him.

The inefficacy of persuasion shows in the beginning of the third act as well -- the Duke disguised as a priest instantly makes Claudio ready for death, which resolve lasts about 10 minutes.

Act three, scene 2 has something to do with how difficult it is for virtue to be constantly recognized in a sinful world. The Duke is slandered in his absence.

At the end of this act, the Duke declares that he finds it necessary to employ "Craft against vice." In other words, the world is imperfect, so you must use imperfect means to deal with injustice. One problem is that the Duke seems already to have known of Angelo's faithless behavior towards Marianna -- which means that it was hardly a good idea to give him power.

Isabella forgives Angelo for the sake of the wronged Mariana, and, when the Duke at last reveals that Claudio is still alive, he is free to let Angelo wed Mariana, setting right the wrong he did her.

On the whole, what the play suggests is that divine justice is tempered with mercy, so human administration of justice had better keep with that rule – even the judges are "guilty" of sin, after all. Shakespeare says this often – "treat all men after their deserts, and who shall 'scape whipping?" (Lear) But I think the problem the editors are pointing to is that the ending seems overly forced – marriages come from nowhere and set everything right, with even the vilest possible villain (Angelo) getting married rather than executed. But then, I suppose we could just say that the Duke's marriage offer doesn't come from nowhere; it could be played so that he's just been waiting to see if Isabella would soften a little – absolutism isn't sanctioned in this play. It's a lesson the Duke has learned, and Isabella has to show she understands it, too. And in Claudio's case with Juliet, marriage overcomes the sin – a human institution makes it possible for two people to live charitably rather than sinfully, even if they aren't exactly saints.

Part of the play's darkness or confusing quality lies in the Duke's acting like God; he behaves as if providence is his alone, and in fact he causes some pain along the way.

__Further Notes__

As Dr. Johnson says, Shakespeare at times makes us fond of rascals – they are, if not exactly honored, at least part of the comic universe. The Duke may have been too lenient, so now he calls upon a man who turns out to be too severe – in this instance, extremes won't balance the situation. But what we get is a gentler version of Cesare Borgia's scheme to avoid becoming hated by his people – in ''The Prince,'' Machiavelli recalls how Cesare appointed a cruel governor to establish order in one of his holdings, and then when the man had done his work, Cesare allowed him to be cut in half in the public square. Well, there is vice and then there is "crime" – the purveyors of vice make up a whole counter-economy in this play; Lucio, Pompey, and Mistress Overdone have their place, and one might say they are a necessary evil.

Lucio is, after all, instrumental in the scene in which Isabella tries to persuade Angelo by fair words and means. Isabella is inexperienced, and doesn't understand that sometimes virtue must, in a wicked world, resort to a trick or two to get itself advanced. Of course, Lucio seems to be in love with lies for the sake of lies. How does a virtuous man like the Duke protect himself against such rogues? People are dependent on sight and sound – on appearances and impressions – and this is a play in which the Duke is determined that his people should ''see'' justice being done. This need to make justice's operation manifest is risky in that it leads to extreme applications for the sake of "making an example" of wrongdoers like Claudio. It's almost as if the Duke (at first) believes absolute order and justice can be established in Vienna, whereas the truth of the matter is much messier than that, and the fact that some of the other characters don't really follow his dictates may be in part what brings this fact home to him. The Duke can't arrange all affairs to his liking, and there is no perfection under the sun. Barnabas the villain is a good example – he refuses to cooperate and make himself ready to die, and justice must not be reduced to savagery, so his execution must be postponed.

Isabella's claim that authority has about it a "medicine" that tends to keep the governors within bounds also seems naïve, but it's worth considering for the assumptions it makes about human nature and the power of conscience. While Angelo stands for the ''Old Testament'' notion of pardoning sinners only after you have cut them down, Isabella sets forth the argument for clemency in a textbook manner, even if that manner is not without passion. In sum, the "saint" has tempted another saint. Angelo thought that law and justice were strictly impersonal, a matter of reason and logic, but it turns out that administering the law calls for charity, which is something we arrive at only by means of considerable self-searching. In a sense, the law is always personal – the abstract standards may be necessary in the name of fairness, but it is human beings who must ''apply'' the law. Angelo's desire for Isabella tugs at his will, which in turn misinforms and warps his faculty of reason. To borrow a phrase that Stanley Fish applies to Milton's method in ''Paradise Lost,'' Angelo finds himself "surprised by sin."

As for the play's moral resolution, not everyone finds it satisfactory, but perhaps it's asking too much that it should be "satisfactory." The ending may be somewhat forced, and it lacks the "resort to and return from the green world" movement of other Shakespeare comedies – for example ''As You Like It.'' The play's tempering of justice by means of hasty marriages retains something of the brittleness shown by Angelo in his overapplication of it. Some of the marrying seems more like punishment than charity. To what extent do any of the characters ''change'' – comedy is generally, after all, about personal and societal transformation and regeneration. But perhaps the Duke's sudden commutations and solution mirror the grander ones God made for the whole of humanity – this divine redemptive process is, after all, often described as sudden, and it's unmerited as well. It may be that the demand placed on Shakespeare to prepare us elaborately for the play's resolution is, in the context of this play about justice, misplaced. There is much abrupt illogic and "feeling" in the charitable administration of justice, so why demand the representation of an elaborately logical process whereby justice will be achieved?