critics

anti feminist

  • charleton - “self possessed hussy”

  • gless - isabella’s chastity shows religious arrogance

patriarchy/feminist

  • billington - even his final offer of marriage to Isabella becomes a demonstration of brutal authority

marxist

  • commodification of bodies

  • law used to regulate morality and impose control rather than serve justice

  • ryan - barnardine escapes power strucutres by not ackowledging them

morality

  • hazlitt - there is good even in bad people

sex/sexuality/chastity

  • Maus - Angelo is sexually aroused by prohibition

  • DUKE: Sebastian Shaw's portrayal of the Duke in John Barton's 1970 production

    played Duke as intellectual fool, unable to master a situation for which he was partly to blame, a pathetic, ineffective bumbler

  • WOMEN: Findlay quote about fetishing innocence

    'tradition of eroticisation of the Virgin through the fixation on chastity'

  • "something rancid in her chastity… not by any means such a saint" Quiller-Couch

  • “sex-laws are neglected…enforce(d)… and finally casually dropped, leaving the ‘stew’ as merrily bubbling as at the beginning”  - Wharton 

honesty

  • ANGELO: Jonathon Bate view on Angelo's morality (21st century) - Angelo is 'one of the few characters who can self-analyse in an honest way'

  • VIRTUE: Patsy Hall view on Lucio and Pompey (20th century)

    "In a world where situations are rarely what they seem, Pompey and Lucio are consistently faithful to their fallen natures."

marriage

  • FEMINIST: Sonia Sanchez's view on marriage in the play (21st century)

    'Rather than celebrate marriage, 'Measure for Measure' treats it as a form of salutary public shame.'

  • “marriage is not a matter of comic festivity but a punishment for sexual sin” - Adelman

  • john barton 1970 production - isabella accepts proposal with warmth

  • isabella accepts her place as duchess of vienna