Measure for Measure
This play examines the nature of mercy and justice, proposing that a good government is one that is flexible and based on common sense.
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- I know this is Heathen Heresy but I never enjoyed Shakespeare. As part of my English studies I have read the following ones - Antony and Cleopatra, As You Like It, The Comedy of Errors, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, The Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Winter’s Tale.
Average grades on them were between A+ to B's but dayamn! that olde timee englishee is hard to parse (even with the crib notes) and made me question the validity of them as an example of 'good English writing'
'Get Thee to a Nunnery!' Indeed.
And don't even get me started on Chaucer <shudder>.
- Thanks for helping me to better get that message.
I agree and that's what I have always been feeling a bit puzzled about, as in 17th century England, religious correctness is still not a trivial thing.
But in a certain sense, Satan is not absolutely evil and not having no good characters at all. For instance, as the example mentioned in the article, Satan is quite empathetic towards his fellow fallen angels -- and this empathy, would often invoke reader's empathy to a certain extent.
So perhaps Milton hopes to create a Satan that has some subtle and mixed characters, with depth, with a spectrum of shades. I feel this method is similarly employed in many Shakespeare's plays (such as Angelo in Measure for Measure), which were written even earlier than Paradise Lost.
- I feel another place in Measure for Measure that also indicates the depth and the subtlety of Angelo's character is that his monologue in Act II Scene IV,
Clearly, Angelo feels a certain conflict in his heart, and he struggles hard with this cognitive dissonance, which shows that he is not utterly evil.When I would pray and think, I think and pray To several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words; Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue, Anchors on Isabel: Heaven in my mouth, As if I did but only chew his name; And in my heart the strong and swelling evil Of my conception. The state, whereon I studied Is like a good thing, being often read, Grown fear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity, Wherein--let no man hear me--I take pride, Could I with boot change for an idle plume, Which the air beats for vain. O place, O form, How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit, Wrench awe from fools and tie the wiser souls To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood: Let's write good angel on the devil's horn: 'Tis not the devil's crest.
I am not that sure to what extent this reign is over them; and who those "them" are? It might not necessarily mean his fellow fallen angels but those dead souls in hell...And there's a lot of that in Milton's Satan too. He's undeniably colourful, but seriously, complaining to his companions how crappy it is to reigned over while at the same time declaring his own ambition to reign over them.And also, he is having a conference with his comrades in Pandæmonium, right? In this sense, his power over his comrades -- if he is superior -- is not absolute, as at least he consults them, unlike that in heaven...
- Shakespeare is perhaps the most over-rated play write ever. Sure he wrote a few good plays - 'Hamlet', 'Othello', a few other tragedies of note. But most of his stuff was pretty mediocre - 'Measure for Measure' for instance - or outright sucked - 'Romeo and Juliet' perhaps being one of the worst plays ever conceived.
Compared to say, Sophocles of old, or, in our time, people like Harold Pinter or Edward Albee, Shakespeare was a hack pulp fiction paperback play write who wrote a small number of adequate plays and a large number of really poor plays. Even his best, 'Hamlet', was itself meandering and hard to decipher - Hamlet is crazy, but one thinks he is just pretending to be crazy, however, after a few viewings (or readings) one figures out he is actually in point of fact crazy (insane). But this point could have been made with more clarity and brevity which is why although the play is a great play, we cannot call its author a particularly great writer - good, to be sure, but not great, again, not compared to the really great ones of our day like Pinter.
The real tragedy is that high school students are forced to suffer through this hack's tortuous and obfuscated attempts at drama and pathos. Now that is a tragedy.
