SHAKESPEARE is my Homeboy

Introduction and Historical Overview -Measure for Measure

Measure for Measure is believed to have been completed by Shakespeare in 1604, according to G. Blakemore Evans in The Riverside Shakespeare (Evans 545). The first recorded performance in the Accounts Book of the Revels Office for a play called Mesur for Mesur by 'Shaxberd' was on St. Stephen's Day, (December 26) 1604 at Whitehall (Stead 11). It was first published in the 1623 Folio edition. Measure for Measure is the only play in which Shakespeare makes a biblical allusion in the title. The title is drawn from the passage in 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 unto you again." (Geneva Bible, quoted by Barton, in Evans 545). Brian Gibbons points out in the Cambridge edition, that the biblical allusion from Matthew's gospel would have been well known to Shakespeare's audience (Gibbons 1).

There were several literary and historical events which I believe may have been significant to the composition of Measure for Measure, and influential on Shakespeare's work. First, King James I ascended to the throne in 1603. Basilikon Doron, James' treatise on the just rule of a king, was published in London in 1603, and I believe it was very influential on Shakespeare's play. Measure for Measure was the first play Shakespeare composed for the new king. Critics such as Ernest Schanzer believe that the Duke Vincentio was intended as a representation of James I. Schanzer argues that "there is too much evidence to be dismissed" for such a claim (Stead 238).

Finally, I believe that it is important to understand Measure for Measure in the context of several historical deaths in Shakespeare's family, which may have profoundly influenced the playwright, and his work. Shakespeare's only son Hamnet, along with his uncle Henry Shakespeare died in 1596 (Evans 1876). Further, Shakespeare's father died in 1601, and there was an outbreak of the plague in London in 1603. All of these events lead me to believe that Shakespeare was perhaps meditating on death, and perhaps his own mortality during the composition of Measure for Measure.

I believe that the subject of death takes on a new and deeper significance in Measure for Measure and many of Shakespeare's plays after 1596. For example, in Love's Labour's Lost (revised in 1597 ), death subtly creeps in at the end of the play, with the unexpected death of the King of France, and the Princess' postponement of the weddings. Many of Shakespeare's subsequent plays deal with sudden death or loss of a loved one. Merchant of Venice (1596-97) deals with Shylock's loss of his daughter to a Christian husband (a kind of death to which Shylock says "I would my daughter were dead at my foot" (MofV, III, i, 87-88)). Hamlet (1600) deals with the prince's loss of his father. Twelfth Night (1601-2) presents Viola's grief over her suspected loss of her brother, as well as Olivia's prolonged, seven years of mourning for her dead brother. Interestingly, if Twelfth Night was in fact completed in 1602, this would have been six (instead of seven) years after the death of Shakespeare's own son, and the playwright or his wife may have been in an extended period of mourning as well.

In Measure for Measure, we see Isabella drawn into action at the news of her brother Claudio's death sentence, and the possibility of his execution. I believe that there is a repeated pattern of indiscriminate and unexpected death (or loss) in the plays written after 1596. These include the shipwrecks of Twelfth Night, and Merchant of Venice, Claudius' murder in Hamlet, Jessica's escape in Merchant of Venice, and Claudio's death sentence in Measure for Measure.

Most major editors, including J.W. Lever, Anne Barton and Mark Eccles, agree that Shakespeare's two major sources for Measure for Measure were: Cinthio's Hecatommithi (1565), as well as his dramatic retelling of the same story, Epitia (1583). Another major source for the play is Whetstone's two-part play, The Right Excellent and Famous Historye of Promos and Cassandra (1578). (see Lever xxxv, Evans 545-46, Gibbons 7-11). Brian Gibbons, in his introduction to the Cambridge edition, further cites several possible sources within the work of Shakespeare's contemporaries, such as Johnson's Sejanus, Marston's The Malcontent, and Middleton's The Phoenix. If Gibbons is correct, this helps to support his theory that the play was composed and/or completed in 1604.

When examining Measure for Measure in relation to its sources, it is helpful to consider two major original plot elements that Shakespeare added to his version of the story. The character of the Duke disguised as a Friar, for example, is a Shakespearean invention. I believe that it is significant since, disguised as Friar, the duke adds a voice of religious reason to the difficult moral dilemmas presented throughout the play. Ultimately, the Christian value of mercy inherent in the title is espoused at the end of the play.

Another creation of Shakespeare was the bedtrick, used again in All's Well That End's Well, and other plays of the period. As Northrop Frye points out in On Shakespeare, there was a biblical precedent for the bed trick in the bible story of Jacob and Leah. (Frye 151). Shakespeare's use of the bed trick allows Angelo's execution later in the play to be averted, so that instead he can marry Mariana. Through the introduction of the bed-trick Shakespeare avoids the darker, tragic ending of his sources.

There are significant plot differences between Shakespeare and his sources. As Barton points out, in all other versions of the story, the Isabella character does sleep with the unjust judge in order to save her brother's life (Barton 546). Further, in the Whetstone's play, the Angelo character is executed, and not spared with mercy. Shakespeare's introduction of the bed trick can perhaps be seen as the most morally sound solution to an immoral predicament.