Having finished the play already, I cannot really say I consider Measure for Measure one of Shakespeare's comedies. Although it does end with multiple marriages, a motif associated with a comedy as opposed to death's association with tragedy, this play is filled with deception, disguise, governmental conspiracies, prostitution, and general abhorrent behavior.
Angelo refuses to marry his fiancée simply because she lost her dowry and brings him no financial gain. He condemns other Vienneses for their actions when he is quite obviously guilty of committing the same transgressions. He requests that Isabella surrender her virginity and honor to him in order to free her brother’s name. After sleeping with Mariana, under the premise that it is Isabella, he still condemns Claudio to death. Claudio asks his sister to give up her honor and her virginity in order for him to escape the penalty of death for impregnating his girlfriend before they are married. Throughout the play, many characters constantly attempt to accuse another for breaking the law in order for the government not to suspect them of being lawbreakers themselves.
The Duke appears to be a voice of reason for the action of the play— he allows Angelo to take over as ruler of Vienna so he disguise himself and watch the action from an outsider’s experience. Interestingly, he disguises himself as a monk, a man of God, who other characters will surely invest their trust in and tell him the truth. However, the Duke epitomizes disguise and deception in the play. He concocts the plan of tricking Angelo with the help of Mariana and Isabella and suggests they still execute Barnadine and send his head to Angelo in order to save Claudio. When the action of the play culminates in Act V, the Duke at first denies the pleas of Isabella and Mariana and sends them to jail even though he was disguised as a monk and knows they’re telling the truth. After reinstating himself to power, he forces everyone to marry— Angelo is not executed for his hypocritical transgressions but is ordered to marry Mariana, he asks Isabella to marry him, and orders Lucio to marry a whore.
Despite the appalling actions of the characters in the play, one of my biggest dilemmas with this play is actually the forced marriages. I usually consider Shakespeare to be a very affective romantic author, very often including romantic plots or subplots in his comedies. The only true love that appears to be present in this play is that of Claudio and Juliet, whose fate is ultimately unaddressed, while the other characters are forced by the law into their marriages.
4 comments:
I think its classification as a comedy has more to do with its structure than it has to do with its content. Saying it is a comedy is like saying what the skeleton of the play is like. There is an obstacle in the beginning and it is resolved by the end of the play without a lot of bloodshed. While it is true that there is a lot of deception in the play, there was also a great deal of deception in Twelfth Night, what with Viola disguising herself as Cesario for most of that play, and that was certainly a comedy. Also, as for the content I'm sure you would consider "The Hangover" a comedy, and that has plenty of prostitution, kidnapping, deception, and other "abhorrent behavior" in it. It's just funnier.
That's right. As Professor Mulready discussed, it is considered a comedy because it ends in marriage, not in death. This is a particularly dark comedy to be sure, but still fits the mold.
For a comparison I might suggest you look at Volpone, by Ben Johnson. It is in the same vein: a comedy based around lying and cheating, which ends terribly for all involved. It's an extremely depressing ending, even more so than Measure for Measure's, but considered a comedy nonetheless.
I have to agree with Robert and Eric, in argument for argument's sake, Measure for Measure strikes me as a comedy. The best comedies have sex and violence, as they always have, because humanity craves moral dilemma for entertainment. Throw in a few sexual innuendos and you've got a laugh out loud riot. And as Eric said, comedies end in marriage (or in modern times, people "getting together") and tragedies end in death. Relatively recent film "Stranger Than Fiction" Professor Hilbert says that in a tragedy you die, in a comedy you get hitched. There may even be death in the end of a comedy, but it's of a minor character and usually in a strange or amusing manner. Example: Blue dies in "Old School" and one of the characters says in response to his death, "that's what old people do, they die."
The trivialization of marriage is also an aspect of comedy. In a tragedy love is life and law, worth dieing for. In a comedy, love is everywhere and marriage has nothing to do with it.
Questions of genre are so interesting to me! Thanks for raising this, Dom, and thanks to the others for nice responses.
I'll stand by my characterization of comedy as structural, as defined by Robert, but I will say that many agree with Dom that this play fits rather uncomfortably into that mold. Some have gone so far as to set up a new group of plays called "problem plays" (a term Shakespeare never would have used, and one I think has "problems" of its own!), and Measure for Measure is usually included in that group. But there is a sense at the end of this play that there has been an awful lot sacrificed, particularly for Isabella. What Shakespeare does so well in all his plays, though, is to *use* genres to set up audience expectation and then find new directions to take the story. We'll see this many times over the course of the semester.
Post a Comment