Measure for Measure Study Notes
Historical and Political Context of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure
Performance and Patronage Context
Written by William Shakespeare and first performed by his acting company before King James I at his royal palace.
Theatre economics required wealthy financial patrons because charging general admission to common street audience members did not generate sufficient revenue to mount productions.
To secure royal patronage, Shakespeare renamed his acting company The King's Men after King James I agreed to become their official patron.
The play functions simultaneously as royal entertainment and as a political cautionary tale regarding the responsibilities, pitfalls, and consequences of effective versus ineffective rulership.
Divine Right Monarchy and Political Theory
Divine Right Theory posits that God selects an earthly substitute—the monarch—who acts with divine authority to rule over the populace.
King James I explicitly defended this doctrine in a speech to Parliament, asserting:
Monarchy is "the supremest thing on earth."
Kings are "not only God's lieutenants upon earth and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself they are called gods."
Sovereign power is compared to divine power and to paternal authority, where the king is "truly a parent to his people."
Philosophical and practical flaws of Divine Right Monarchy include:
Infallibility vs. Human Error: Monarchs are fallible human beings capable of making errors, raising the problem of how society addresses royal wrongfulness when the ruler is deemed untouchable.
Verification and Succession Disputes: Determining divine selection is problematic, as multiple pretenders claiming direct lineage or divine choice historically led to devastating civil wars in England rather than political stability.
Dramaturgical Subterfuge and Political Safety
Directly questioning a monarch's divine authority carried severe risks, including execution for treason or withdrawal of royal financial sponsorship.
Shakespeare mitigated political risk by setting Measure for Measure in Vienna rather than London, and using a Duke as the sovereign rather than an explicit King, despite the play's suburban settings directly mirroring contemporary London.
Parallels between the Duke and King James I:
King James I famously disdained public spectacles and royal processions, contrasting sharply with Queen Elizabeth I, who utilized public processions to project majesty and power.
Shakespeare attributes this exact trait to the Duke, who explicitly states that he does not like to "stage" himself to the people's eyes.
The play was written during the transitional era when James I had newly assumed the English throne following Elizabeth I's long reign, serving as an exploration of governance strategies.
Legal Traditions, Morality, and the Scope of Law
Legislating Morality and State Intervention
A central debate of the play is whether the legal apparatus of the state should enforce moral conduct and personal behavior, particularly concerning public health, sexuality, and private morality.
Thomas Aquinas and Classical Jurisprudence: Aquinas argued that while religious authorities understand moral rectitude, the general populace requires good civil laws to mandate correct action, thereby gradually training citizens in virtuous behavior and moral reasoning.
Modern Analogues of Moral Legislation:
Criminal Law: Prohibitions against murder and theft (derived historically from religious codes like the Ten Commandments).
Child Welfare and Administrative State Obligations: Legal mandates requiring parents to provide adequate care for offspring, enforced by agencies such as Child Protective Services (CPS). Controversies arise over the boundaries of parental supervision (e.g., legal intervention involving a mother whose 5-year-old child walked unattended to a pond).
Child Support Obligations: Statutory mandates requiring parents—regardless of marital status—to provide financial support for their children, a form of state-enforced moral responsibility accepted across diverse political ideologies, including libertarianism.
English Legal Traditions
The play explores the dynamic between two distinct traditions within English law:
Common Law: Rigid, precedent-based legal systems adhering strictly to statutory formulations.
Equity Law: A legal tradition developed to moderate the strictness of common law by applying principles of conscience, moral fairness, and contextual flexibility.
Historical Sexual Politics, Marriage Laws, and Religious Movements
The Syphilis Epidemic and Public Health
The first major syphilis epidemic spread across Italy in 1491 before proliferating throughout Europe.
Prior to modern medicine, syphilis caused severe neurological degeneration, insanity, death, and congenital transmission to unborn children.
In Measure for Measure, brothels represent both a moral offense and a crisis of public health. While laws prohibiting brothels existed on the statute books, lax enforcement had allowed them to operate unchecked.
Puritanism, Presbyterians, and King James I
Puritans emerged in post-Reformation England seeking to cleanse society of perceived religious corruption and enforce strict regulation of social life (e.g., banning dancing, fornication, and premarital sex, while advocating the death penalty for adultery).
Puritans anticipated political support from King James I due to his origins in Presbyterian Scotland (sharing Calvinist roots). However, James rejected most Puritan demands, with the exception of commissioning the King James Translation of the Bible.
Puritans did not attain full political dominance until the English Revolution in the 1650s.
In the play, the character of Angelo represents the rigid, unyielding Puritan approach to legal enforcement and moral purity.
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Marriage Protocols
Medieval Common-Law Marriage: Historically, lower-class couples achieved legally binding marriages through cohabitation and informal mutual declarations (spousal contracts) without formal church or state intervention.
Three-Stage Marital Process in Elizabethan/Jacobean England:
Betrothal: Formal family agreement and financial negotiation.
Handfast Ceremony: A public declaration within the community where the couple joined hands and declared marital commitment. Society generally recognized couples at this stage as morally and legally bound, and consummation frequently occurred.
Church Wedding: The final ecclesiastical confirmation.
Delays between handfasting and the church wedding were common, often caused by protracted dowry negotiations.
Puritans sought to eliminate informal handfastings and common-law recognition, insisting that only a formal church wedding validated a marriage.
Analysis of Act 1: Plot, Governance, and Moral Ambiguities
Act 1, Scene 1 & Scene 3: The Duke's Substitution and Motivation
The Duke calls his senior advisor, Escalus, and appoints Angelo as his substitute to exercise full sovereign authority over Vienna.
Angelo's Initial Demurral: Angelo exhibits apparent humility, requesting tests of his character before assuming authority: "Let there be some more test made of my metal before so noble as a great a figure be stamped upon it."
The Duke's True Motivation (Scene 3): The Duke admits to Friar Thomas that Vienna's "strict statutes and most biting laws" have been unenforced for fourteen years. Consequently, "our decrees, dead to infliction, themselves are dead, and liberty plucks justice by the nose."
The Governance Strategy: Rather than personally enforcing the neglected, strict penalties—which would render him unpopular—the Duke secretly retreats to a monastery, delegating the harsh legal cleanup to Angelo.
Abdication vs. Delegation: Under Divine Right theory, a ruler appointed by God cannot simply abdicate power permanently without violating divine order; appointing a temporary deputy allows the Duke to step back without formal abdication.
Act 1, Scene 2: Legal Enforcement and Claudio's Arrest
Upon taking power, Angelo immediately enforces dormant statutes without prior warning or transition periods:
Orders the demolition of suburban brothels (while sparing certain establishments with wealthy, influential patrons).
Arrests Claudio and sentences him to death for impregnating his partner, Juliet (Julietta).
Claudio's Defense: Claudio explains that he and Juliet were married "upon a true contract" (a handfasting), lacking only the formal church ceremony ("denunciation of adequate order"), which had been delayed due to ongoing negotiations regarding Juliet's dowry.
Claudio's Assessment of Liberty: Claudio acknowledges his plight stems from "too much liberty," noting that lax enforcement corrupted civic behavior: "A serpent is the father of much fast."
Act 1, Scene 4: Isabella and Religious Restraint
Isabella is introduced entering the convent of the Order of Saint Clare (Poor Clares), an ascetic order practicing vows of poverty and extreme seclusion.
Isabella expresses a desire for even stricter regulations: "I speak not as desiring more, but rather wishing a more strict restraint unto the sisterhood."
When Lucio informs Isabella of Claudio's arrest and death sentence, her immediate response is legalistic and practical: "O, let him marry her."
Isabella's reaction demonstrates that even a deeply religious novice regards handfasting and contract as the substantive element of marriage, viewing the church ceremony as a legal formality rather than a capital offense.
Moral and Character Evaluations Across Act 1
Claudio and Juliet: Depicted sympathetically; their punishment feels unjust and retroactively applied, as their conduct aligned with long-standing social customs.
Angelo: Exhibits hypocrisy and draconian severity; despite initial claims of humility, he instantly imposes severe legal remedies without public warning.
Mistress Overdone and Pompey: Comic, lower-class figures (Pompey representing the theatrical "clown" stock character) who profit from vice and disease; their plight illustrates the arbitrary nature of legal enforcement, as suburban brothels are targeted while higher-status vice escapes identical penalties.
The Duke: Displays cowardice and political manipulation by fleeing his executive responsibilities, hiding in a monastic disguise, and using Angelo as an instrument to execute harsh measures he lacked the political courage to enforce himself.