William Shakespeare edited by Brian Gibbons - Measure for Measure

THE NEW CAMBRIDGE SHAKESPEARE

GENERAL EDITOR

Brian Gibbons

ASSOCIATE GENERAL EDITOR

A. R. Braunmuller, University of California, Los Angeles

From the publication of the first volumes in 1984 the General Editor of the New Cambridge Shakespeare was Philip Brockbank and the Associate General Editors were Brian Gibbons and Robin Hood. From 1990 to 1994 the General Editor was Brian Gibbons and the Associate General Editors were A. R. Braunmuller and Robin Hood.

MEASURE FOR MEASURE

Since the rediscovery of Elizabethan stage conditions early in the twentieth century, admiration for Measure for Measure has steadily risen. It is now a favourite with the critics and has attracted widely different styles of performance. At one extreme, the play is seen as a religious allegory; at the other, it has been interpreted as a comedy protesting against power and privilege.

Brian Gibbons focuses on the unique tragi-comic experience of watching the play, the intensity and excitement offered by its dramatic rhythm, the reversals and surprises which shock the audience even to the end. His introduction considers how the plays critical reception and stage history have varied according to prevailing social, moral and religious issues, which were highly sensitive when Measure for Measure was written, and have remained so to the present day. This updated edition contains a new introductory section by Angela Stock, which describes recent stage, film and critical interpretations, and an updated reading list.

THE NEW CAMBRIDGE SHAKESPEARE

Alls Well That Ends Well, edited by Russell Fraser

Antony and Cleopatra, edited by David Bevington

As You Like It, edited by Michael Hattaway

The Comedy of Errors, edited by T. S. Dorsch

Coriolanus, edited by Lee Bliss

Cymbeline, edited by Martin Butler

Hamlet, edited by Philip Edwards

Julius Caesar, edited by Marvin Spevack

King Edward III, edited by Giorgio Melchiori

The First Part of King Henry IV, edited by Herbert Weil and Judith Weil

The Second Part of King Henry IV, edited by Giorgio Melchiori

King Henry V, edited by Andrew Gurr

The First Part of King Henry VI, edited by Michael Hattaway

The Second Part of King Henry VI, edited by Michael Hattaway

The Third Part of King Henry VI, edited by Michael Hattaway

King Henry VIII, edited by John Margeson

King John, edited by L. A. Beaurline

The Tragedy of King Lear, edited by Jay L. Halio

King Richard II, edited by Andrew Gurr

King Richard III, edited by Janis Lull

Loves Labours Lost, edited by William C. Carroll

Macbeth, edited by A. R. Braunmuller

Measure for Measure, edited by Brian Gibbons

The Merchant of Venice, edited by M. M. Mahood

The Merry Wives of Windsor, edited by David Crane

A Midsummer Nights Dream, edited by R. A. Foakes

Much Ado About Nothing, edited by F. H. Mares

Othello, edited by Norman Sanders

Pericles, edited by Doreen DelVecchio and Antony Hammond

The Poems, edited by John Roe

Romeo and Juliet, edited by G. Blakemore Evans

The Sonnets, edited by G. Blakemore Evans

The Taming of the Shrew, edited by Ann Thompson

The Tempest, edited by David Lindley

Timon of Athens, edited by Karl Klein

Titus Andronicus, edited by Alan Hughes

Troilus and Cressida, edited by Anthony B. Dawson

Twelfth Night, edited by Elizabeth Story Donno

The Two Gentlemen of Verona, edited by Kurt Schlueter

The Two Noble Kinsmen, edited by Robert Kean Turner and Patricia Tatspaugh

The Winters Tale, edited by Susan Snyder and Deborah T. Curren-Aquino

THE EARLY QUARTOS

The First Quarto of Hamlet, edited by Kathleen O. Irace

The First Quarto of King Henry V, edited by Andrew Gurr

The First Quarto of King Lear, edited by Jay L. Halio

The First Quarto of King Richard III, edited by Peter Davison

The First Quarto of Othello, edited by Scott McMillin

The First Quarto of Romeo and Juliet, edited by Lukas Erne

The Taming of a Shrew: The 1594 Quarto, edited by Stephen Roy Miller

MEASURE FOR MEASURE

Updated edition

Edited by

BRIAN GIBBONS

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town,
Singapore, So Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City

Cambridge University Press

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org

Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521854481

Cambridge University Press, 1991, 2006

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 1991

Reprinted 1995, 1997, 1999, 2003 (twice), 2004 (twice)

Updated edition 2006

7th printing 2012

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CRO 4YY

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-0-521-85448-1 Hardback

ISBN 978-0-521-67078-4 Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Illustration by permission of Sophie Baker.

PREFACE

Between the closing of the theatres by the Puritans at the time of the English Civil War in 1642 and the rediscovery of Elizabethan stage conditions in the period near the beginning of the First World War in 1914, Measure for Measure was not one of Shakespeares more popular plays, either with readers or on the stage. Its out-spokenness on sex, crime and social divisions, topics which increasingly polite society preferred not to mention, would perhaps have been enough to secure unpopularity, but in addition the plays exploitation of the mixed dramatic mode of tragi-comedy was not understood, especially by readers familiar only with neoclassical dramatic rules for comedy and tragedy. Certainly the play deals with painful experience, and to read it or see it performed may be a troubling as well as a humorous and moving experience, although in recent times admiration for it has steadily risen and since the end of the Second World War the play has been more and more frequently performed in the theatre.

In this play the mixed genre of tragi-comedy involved the bringing together of seemingly incompatible narrative materials and deliberately contrasting dramatic styles, which the dramatist would strive to combine in a design offering a spectacularly surprising conclusion, just when this seemed least possible. Perhaps it is more true of this play than of other Shakespeare plays that each fresh production presents it in a different shape by making its own choice of tone, rhythm and emphasis among a number of different yet most important issues. Yet where a selective emphasis may be the key to theatrical interpretation (as the stage history on pp. 5168 shows) it is one of the duties of an editor to try to give recognition to the sheer variety of elements heterogeneous and volatile though they may be which Shakespeare includes in