Using Dorset edition, which uses the Stratford Town Edition.
William Shakespeare, The Complete Works (NY: Dorset, 1988).
Theme: Mercy vs. Justice. Allusion to justice = eye for eye, tooth for tooth [measure for measure]; allusion to mercy = let him without sin cast the first stone [esp. sexual sin].
Summary: Duke wants to restore the strictness of fornication/adultery laws. He sets up Angelo to do it, while he feigns that he will be away. Instead he remains to check up on Angelo and the town (Vienna). Angelo goes ahead and closes down Overdone's brothel and the others, and puts Claudio in jail, condemned to die the morrow, for impregnating Juliet.
Isabella, Claudio's sister and about to enter a nunnery, pleads for Angelo's mercy on him. Lucio counsels her to be warm to him, and she is just warm enough to inspire Angelo to seduce her: seduction in exchange for Claudio. The Duke, posing as a Friar, overhears her exchange with Claudio in which he counsels her to go through with the act. He enters and sets up a plan: Angelo ought to have married Mariana but didn't: Mariana therefore will go in Isabella's place.
Angelo, after the deed, calls even more quickly for Claudio's head. The Duke (as Friar) puts this off: now Angelo is two steps behind (not knowing about either Mariana or Claudio). The Duke returns, as Duke, and asks for anyone against Angelo to speak. Isabella does: finally it comes out that the Friar was behind Isabella's suit. The Friar is called for, and so the Duke disappears and comes back as the Friar, but is revealed to be the Duke. The switch is revealed and Angelo must marry Mariana; Claudio is revealed as alive and is pardoned by the Duke. Lucio (a subplot) also gets his deserts.
Morality: mercy wins over justice, and yet there is a strong sense of justice having been done. Symbolically accomplished by the Duke (justice) taking on the habit of "a true friar" (mercy but with sense of justice) starting with I.iii.48.
II.i.17 ff, Angelo on justice without mercy: "'Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,/Another thing to fall. I not deny,/The jury, passing on the prisoner's life,/May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two/Guiltier than him they try. What's open made to justice,/That justice seizes: what know the laws/That thieves do pass on thieves?"--this is unmitigated justice, just as II.i.30-31: "Let mine own judgement pattern out my death, [which Angelo is willing to accept once caught, in V.i.371]/And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die." And also cf. II.ii.81-83 and V.i.474. The Duke plans to hold Angelo to it in III.ii.260-63 and in V.i.407 ff. (eye for eye, "Measure still for Measure" in line 409).
Escalus explains one aspect of why justice is necessary in II.i.85 ff.: "Pardon is still the nurse of second woe"; Angelo seconds this in II.ii.101 ff: "I show it [pity] most when I show justice;/for then I pity those I do not know,/Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall;/And do him right that, answering one foul wrong/Lives not to act another." This may be the idea behind Mariana's statement in V.i.437-38: most men "become much more the better/For being a little bad."
Lucio: the "go for it" morality, I.iv.77-79 -- Lucio counsels a wrong action with the right idea: our fear of adverse consequences might keep us from taking the good action. Same as Duke (as Friar), III.i.209: "Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful."
Froth: puts forward notion that he is good, but that an external force draws him to the bad, II.i.110-12: "For mine own part, I never come into any room in a taphouse, but I am drawn in." But others work from the notion that everyone commits sexual sin: e.g. Pompey, II.i.231 ff, Provost, II.ii.5, Lucio, III.ii.103, even Angelo II.iv.121,123 when trying to seduce Isabella (but Angelo and the Duke think they can cut down on it with deterrents of punishment). Also cf. Isabella's similar pleas, II.ii.63-66 and II.ii.137 ff. Related to this is the 'he who is without sin'--the notion that the sins of the judge justify mercy about the sins of the judged, II.ii.176-77--this spoken by Angelo once he falls for Isabella, in passion, (but then cf. II.iv.15-17: "Blood, thou art blood:/Let's write good angel on the devil's horn,/'Tis not the devil's crest") and spoken more forcefully by the Duke at IV.ii.108 ff., IV.ii.59 ff., and V.i.108 ff. (this last being aligned with reason). Franklin, "On Censure or Backbiting": he who will always "excuse and palliate the Crimes of others, may rationally be suspected to have some secret darling Vice, which he hopes will be excused him in return," Lemay 195. Is this not the situation of the Duke, and the reasoning of these others?
The difficultly of remaining without sin "when once our grace we have forgot": the Pauline words of Angelo "we would, and we would not!" at IV.iv.34-35.
Claudio: the virtue of a necessary sin (see also All's Well III.vii: "lawful deceit," "lawful meaning in unlawful act"), III.i.131-133: "What sin you do to save a brother's life,/Nature dispenses with the deed so far/That it becomes a virtue." The Duke says as much to Mariana at the end of IV.i: "[fear not (be bold as virtue is bold) and] 'tis no sin,/Sith that the justice of your title to him/Doth flourish the deceit [and indeed the time is ripe]", and likewise in V.i.533: "Th'offence pardons itself." And compare Pompey as the "lawful hangman" in IV.ii.
But Isabella disagrees: her morality comes from spirit and truth, III.i.206-08: "I have spirit to do any thing that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit." She recognizes, as does Angelo, that Claudio ought to be punished, but tempers her justice with mercy.
Class Notes
10/8 (Doniger)
COMEDY: In Shakespeare's comedy, the plot is purposefully trifled with and even held in contempt.
PLOT: Bed-trick tradition: interesting to see what Shakespeare added and changed from the tradition. The overall plot revolves around this; it draws on several sources, themselves based on historical anecdotes: in Genesis, Tamar and Judah, and Rachel and Leah. Extra "heads" and extra "maidenheads." Here, the heroine (Isabella) wins out. But while the substitute (Mariana) is rather unimportant, we still care about her (in All's Well, we don't care at all about the one substituted for). There is narrative tidiness, but not emotional tidiness--the marriages will not necessarily be happy. Deceit and doubleness: TEXT (Grene): a mixture of the original version and the court version. As a poetic play, the poetic parts tend to carry more significance/truth (esp. when spoken by people in other roles? [other David]).
SURROGATES:
(1) Angelo for Duke: The Duke wants to see what Angelo is made of (cf. "to see what he would do" in Genesis). He sees much of himself in Angelo, and wants to see how Angelo would do in the same situation that the Duke has been in (see esp. "My nature" (Duke, I.iii.40)). The Duke seeks justice, but both is shy and shows mercy--while Angelo is neither. Coinage and stampage imagery: the office of the Duke is "stamped" on Angelo. (Cf. II.iv, adultery as stamping with worthlessness). Shyness: keeping people away (I.i, II.iv); people should not crowd in a ruler [Angelo also says this]. Torture (V.i, 'the duke's in us'): both D. and A. have something about power.
Grene: Why does the Duke use Angelo? The Duke knows what he ought ot have done, and that at least someone else should do it. The Duke has doubts about his own asceticism--would Angelo really be better in keeping to the law? The Duke in choosing Angelo attempts to revive a thoroughness in the law--though this is not possible because even the lawgiver breaks his own laws, or at least doubts (justification for mercy). So how hypocritical is the Duke, really? To help him discover the answer, he tries out Angelo. This presents a dim or at best commonplace world: yes, anyone in the role of enforcer would be hypocriticial, because of our universal natural tendencies of lust.
(2) A. for Claudio: more of the morality 'cast the first stone' ideas. Angelo is really like Claudio, as is everyone.
(3) death-row substitutions (black humor): beheading and quibble on sexual "head"; Ren. attention to sex and death together; the bawd as the hangman [another surrogate]. Reason for subst.: to fool Angelo. Similarly, at the end, Claudio substitutes for himself!
Grene: why does the Duke want to kill Barnardine, whom the audience likes?--there must be an important purpose for this, if it really is to happen--but Shakespeare turns out to leave him alive anyway and replace him with someone else.
(4) M. for I. (clear in plot)--also, Mariana substitutes for herself, as the rightful wife in Angelo's bed. Isabella (the one substituted for, actually) is more important. (In All's Well, the bed-substitution plays an even larger role and the substitute is the more important character)
VISION and HEARING: betrayal by mistake (cf. false capture in All's Well); think of bagged and hooded heads (esp. Duke). "Shadow and silence" and 'eye and tongue/lips.' Nuns may either hear or see a man, but not both.
TORTURE and MARRIAGE: Why does the Duke go on so long before being uncovered? For one, he sought to let the evidence come out naturally; artistically this helps show the usual course of events for such accusations. Also, to show his exercise of power (torture aspect, esp. for Angelo and, unfortunately, Isabella). The plot needs a cleanup formula by the final scenes: but a simple one cannot work because there are "real people" involved, and the ones to be married are unfit for it. Nevertheless we don't know for sure (though we assume it) that Isabella will marry the duke.
THE LAW: (follow up later): see what the Friar says about the law.
10/15 (Grene)
How hypocritical are the Duke, Angelo, and Isabella, really? Or ought we better read their actions as the evolution of moral tests and (un)progress? Each, at least, acts oppositely compared to what they say or hope: strictness vs. looseness. How much seeming hypocrisy is in the nature of people? Can it be that Isabella becomes abominable? (Grene seems to be arguing here (esp. at II.iv) that Isabella is not acting purely out of respect for chastity--that she actually prefers her brother to die, but out of meanness? As though chastity really isn't so important as some stronger motive? I can't agree. You can't say that Isabella both becomes a seducer of Angelo AND chooses not to finish seducing him in order to let her brother die. Angelo thinks he is being seduced by a highly moral woman, which is only why he falls for her anyway.)
Some passages read and discussed (and approx. line nos.):
I.ii.115 ff.--Claudio and Lucio on scope/lechery vs. restraint.
II.ii.20, A. and I. on justice and mercy, pride (rich in allusion, esp. Christian). "glassy essence" (cf. Pierce)--here, reflection as in a mirror of man, like God, as a moral being (with "ape," completing analogy). We are not so good as God, and therefore shouldn't presume to mete justice, just because we have gotten some authority. Angelo suggests (lines 101-02) that pity is for those he doesn't know, while he shows justice on those he does know. This kind of justice-seeking objectivity is not unequivocally good. Angelo finds out for the first time (about line 150) just how hard it is to deal with lust. (Note that Lucio assumed this about him all along, by continuing to direct Isabella in her suit--concept of natural fallenness // AK)
Also discussed: II.iii, end; II.iv; III.i., beginning -- esp. Duke on death (cf. Claudio on death).
10/22
(Grene) see paper notes.