Measure for Measure

I really had no idea what this play was about when I started, and I found the first scene almost enough to make me give up - I just couldn't follow what the Duke was saying. However, it quickly became fairly easy to read and the plot pulled me in. I didn't know if this was a comedy or a tragedy, and the plot had elements of both so I was unsure until the last act whether it would end in bloodshed or smiles.

One thing bothered me a bit, approaching it as I did with my modern-day sensibilities and morals - I find it difficult to believe or understand that Isabel really would rather die or let her brother die than to have sex with Angelo. I guess that it is my agnostic upbringing …

When Claudio is condemned to hang for getting his fiancee Juliet pregnant before their wedding, the Duke of Vienna’s deputy, Angelo, offer’s Claudio’s sister, Isabella, a way to save her brother’s life. Angelo will spare Claudio’s life if Isabella, a novitiate preparing to become a nun, will sleep with him. Isabella would rather see her brother die than lose her virtue, but nevertheless she tells her brother of Angelo’s offer. It seems Claudio would rather live than allow his sister to keep her virtue, so Isabella steels herself to do what she must to save her brother’s life. Fortunately, the Duke of Vienna hasn’t actually gone away. He’s disguised himself as a friar, and in this disguise he is able to come up with a solution that will make everyone happy.In a way, the issue still feels contemporary in these days of MeToo. However, I didn’t find much comedy in this plot, nor many sympathetic characters.

A man accused of fornication faces the death penalty. His cloistered sister and the Duke scheme to save him. Shakespeare explores justice in this play.

Not my favourite Shakespeare but a good play about the possibility of corruption in the justice system. The character of Angelo, a noble charged with cleaning up the town, is well drawn, as are his motives for using the laws to improve his own position. Claudio, is the wronged prisoner, whose deliverance is the main line of action. A good read, and probably a play that is easy to stage. I seem to have read it about six times.

To me, this one seemed a little less convoluted than some of Shakespeare's plots. It's fairly straightforward, and—to me, at least—all the more enjoyable for that.

The fact that it deals with a crooked ruler abusing his power also tended to resonate with me, in these days of Trump.

The thing that bothered me was, at the end, did anything really change? The Duke, toward the beginning, bemoans the fact that, for years, the laws had been flouted and never enforced, and that a strong hand was needed to restore order and justice. Obviously, Angelo was the wrong man for the job, but...in the end, did anything change? Did I miss something?

Young Claudio is arrested for getting his fiancee pregnant, a situation that isn't so unusual, but the deputy, Angelo, has decided to make Claudio an example. Angelo sentences Claudio to death. Claudio has a sister who is about to become a nun, and he sends for her, hoping that chaste and intelligent Isabel can sway Angelo towards leniency. Angelo is swayed, but only because can exercise even more viciousness by forcing Isabel to choose: sleep with him and save her brother or refuse and save her own soul.This was one of Shakespeare's plays that has always flown under my radar. It has sat on my shelf for more years than a know, and until I watched an episode of "Shakespeare Uncovered" a few weeks ago, I never even know the plot. They made a very interesting point about this play, of all Shakespeare's, being a preface to the modern #MeToo movement or the general disparity of power between genders.The play begins rather slowly,but when Isabel is introduced both the plot and Angelo's true nature quickly unfold. We know she is good and brave, and she stands up to Angelo and says she will expose him for the kind of man he is. With his reply of "Who will believe thee, Isabel?" he pushes her to make a decision that can be seen as heroic or incredibly selfish.

I liked the main plot and its discussion of mercy and justice. However, all the stuff with Pompey didn't interest me.

Another one where the climactic plot resolution is a rape and counter-rape scheme. I like the portrayal of the Duke in this, though, it's one of the best "disguised ruler" roles I've read. He's in almost every scene, gets some cool comic bits and is basically kind of front and center as the protagonist despite being incognito the whole time.

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 revulsion 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.

Measure for Measure is a play about lust in the sense that Claudio has been sleeping with a woman, Juliet even though they are not married. Is it love or is it lust. In my mind this is really love turned into lust because they had been married, but could not acknowledge it because of some problem with the legality. They are in love but lust creeps into the scene because they refuse wait any longer and thus they break the law.

Angelo is passing judgement on Claudio once he gains power. He appears to be an honest, just person in the beginning of Act One. His true desire is revealed when Isabella comes to try to save her brother. Angelo than is portrayed as a creep and someone who no one would like to meet in a dark alley. He pretends to be something but he really is not. He reminds me of (the Disney) version of Claude Frollo, (I can't speak for Victor Hugo's version, as I haven't read it yet) from the Hunchback of Notre Dame, with Isabella in the place of Esmeralda, as the kind, innocent woman he lusts for and is trying to manipulate in order to get what he wants.

The Duke believes his city is corrupt and he believes that he cannot fix the city without his people hating him because he has not enforced the law. He believes the law needs to be enforced now but he does not believe that he will be able to do it because he has been so lax in allowing the people not to follow the law. He leaves this problem to Anglo thus abdicating his responsibility. "I do fear, too dreadful:/Sith ‘twas my fault to give the people scope,/For what I bid them do: for we bid this be done/When evil deeds have their permissive pass/And not the punishment. Therefore, indeed, my father,/I have on Angelo impos’d the office;/Who may, in the ambush of my name, strike home,/And yet my nature never in the fight,/To do it slander. And to behold his sway,/I will, as ‘twere a brother of your order,/Visit both prince and people: therefore, I pr’ythee,/Supply me with the habit, and instruct me/How I may formally in person bear me/Like a true friar."

The Duke’s true desire is to have people like him but he also wants his city to be a city of people with good morals. He believes Angelo is of good character and by leaving the city in the hands of Angelo, he is able to see if his people will live a moral life and if Angelo is a good leader who is able to get the people to follow a moral life. I also wonder if the Duke perhaps does not have an heir thus trying out Angelo as a potential heir, and therefore, in leaving him in charge of the city, yet remaining behind to watch, may have been his way of testing to see if Angelo could be a good leader. I don’t think the Duke, Vincentio, is trying to torture his citizens. He seems to want to help them and have a city that is morally good but he doesn’t think they will listen to him because he has not enforced the law so it will be too hard to change the behavior. Yet even if he had good intentions, leaving his people at the mercy of Angelo was a cowardly way to fix the problems he saw. At the very least he should have revealed himself when he learned of Angelo's corruption, and attempts to get Isabella into his bed, instead of going through the elaborate hoax to make Angelo think he had gotten what he wanted.

The Duke is the driving force behind the play because it him who decides the city needs to change. The message Shakespeare leaves me with is that man is unconsciously immoral and there is corruption even in men who we believe are good. This is of course illustrated in Angelo who in the beginning uses Claudio as an example of immoral behavior but he himself becomes even a bigger example of immoral behavior when he tries to corrupt the good and innocent Isabella.

I'm not entirely satisfied by the ending of the play. I admire Isabella's forgiving Angelo who wronged her so, much as I admire Immaculee Ilibagiza for forgiving the people who did her wrong, but just because Angelo was forgiven doesn't mean that he should have gotten out of punishment. Only Mariana's grief kept him from death, but I feel she deserved better than Angelo. Claudio has survived, and I'm sure that Isabella will forgive him for what he asked her to do to save his life, but will he forgive himself? Even ignoring the fact that Isabella wanted to become a nun, the tactics of manipulation Angelo was using were such that I would say he was trying to rape her, and Claudio wanted her to let him.

I liked the way that the duke conducted himself, coming as the duke, then the friar, and then revealing himself, as the friar to be the duke, but I don't like what he asked of Isabella. She was trying to become a nun, and this play has taken place over the course of, at most, three or four days. That is not enough time to discern out of your perceived vocation. My grandma almost became a nun, but discerned that she was called to marriage, and years later, married my grandpa. (I have pictures of her in a habit dated 1947 and she got married in 1952). If I was confident that Isabella had discerned that she was called to marriage I wouldn't object to the duke asking for her hand, but four days (at the most) is not enough for her to have made that decision, especially since she was preoccupied with trying to save her brother and believed the duke to be a friar. It makes me doubt the duke's motivations in saving Isabella and her brother. Did he do it just because he wanted Isabella, not because it was the right thing to do? I haven't completely lost faith in him, but I do doubt his character now.

The beginning of my book has summaries of all of Shakespeare's plays so that, I suppose you can read to supplement your understanding of them. I feel that Isabella would be justified to be upset with the duke's proposal, but the summary says "He himself makes Isabella his Duchess," and even Wikipedia says that "her reaction is interpreted differently in different productions: her silent acceptance of his proposal is the most common in performance. This is one of the "open silences" of the play." I find this frustrating because she wanted to become a nun and while it's possible to change your mind and discern that you're called to marriage it would take a lot of prayer and more time than was given in the play to come to that decision.

While I liked the duke in most of the play, I found his marriage proposal to Isabella to be disrespectful to her and her vocation.

The ending isn't a comedy, that's for sure. The only comedic part of the play was Lucio (slandering the duke, unknowingly, to his face), and he is going to prison to be executed. But all isn't lost, the main characters yet live, so it's not really a tragedy either. I describe Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand as a Tragicomedy because, though it is subtitled 'a comedy in five acts' and until the very end of the fourth act it does seem like one, but the ending is tragic. Measure for Measure can't even have that title, as it doesn't have enough comedy or tragedy to be called either, or both.

I liked parts of this ending, but I disliked other parts. Because of this, I did not find it satisfying.

(this review is made up of comments I made for an online Shakespeare class)

A Duke decides to test the character of one of his trusted aides, and at the same time get away from the heavy load of Dukedom. The aide decides that the law is not being enforced strictly enough and puts a man in jail, condemned to death, for getting a woman (not his wife) with child. Then he (the aide) succumbs to temptation and tries to corrupt the condemned man's sister, hiding his failure by killing the man and denying the truth of the sister's complaint. The Duke is working behind the scenes trying to right the wrongs; balancing the law, justice and mercy.Shakespeare weaves it all so much better than I, just go read the play.

I am very fond of this play. I am always moved by the horror of the situation and enjoy the machinations by which the incognito Duke restores justice. I don't care much for the complaints about its supposed uneven tone, since I regard it as a "serious" drama with a little humor.

A very dark tragi-comedy. Makes the 20th century sexual revolution look chaste by comparison. Not a fave -- characters are very 2-dimensional. The Duke is cruel in his kindness. If I were Isabella, I would have slapped him rather than marry him.

While certainly not amongst my favorite of Shakespeare's plays, I did find "Measure for Measure" an enjoyable one.It's a dark comedy. Claudio and gets his fiance Juliet pregnant, so he is sentenced to death for having sex before marriage by Angelo. Claudio's sister begs for his life and the once righteous Angelo attempts to strike a horrible bargain with her. The play also featured a disguised Duke who comes to the rescue. This play is well-paced and not terribly difficult to follow. It lacks some of those great lines that have migrated into our vernacular though.

When the Duke leaves Vienna, he puts a deputy, Angelo, in charge. Angelo is a bit hard-nosed, and decides to revive some of the laws that have been largely ignored by both populace and ruler. Specifically, he imprisons a man who impregnated the woman. Despite the fact that Claudio is willing to marry this woman, Angelo orders that the law be carried out and Claudio must die. Can Claudio's sister, Isabella, convince Angelo to relent?While not one of Shakepeare's most obscure plays, Measure for Measure is also not one I had ever read for school. It does not have oft-quoted lines like Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet, though it does still have sentiments that have found its way into our popular culture (the idea of "hate the sin and love the sinner" shows up). The title is taken from Matthew 7:1-2: "Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." In this case, our judge Angelo is the least sympathetic character in the play. Instead, you really feel for people like Claudio, who makes a mistake but wants to make it right as well as he can, and Isabella who truly loves her brother but is given an awful choice to save his life. I'm not sure I fully agree with the sentiments of the play, and I was a little surprised by the frank discussion of sex and prostitution (I'm not sure why, it's not like I never read Shakespeare before...). If not one of my favorites, it was still a thought-provoking read.

Dark comedy with few if any redeeming characters

This was listed as a comedy in a collection I have of Shakespeare's plays...it didn't seem quite one to me given the basic plot element of "sleep with me or I'll kill your brother." Still, I enjoyed it more than average.

Unlike some critics, I do not find this a "problem play" because of Isabella's refusal to save her brother by having sex with Angelo. As my teacher at Oxford pointed out, giving in to tyranny is never the best answer, and in fact we know within the play that if she had submitted Angelo would have betrayed her and killed her brother anyway.