Measure for Measure
Measure for MeasureShakespeare's ambivalently comic treatment of power, sexuality, and repression belongs very much to the early years of the Jacobean period. According to the Revels accounts for 1604–5, the first recorded performance of Measure for Measure took place at court on 26 December 1604. Several topical allusions in the text suggest a slightly earlier date of composition. A passing reference in the opening lines of 1.2 to the final stages of a war between the Duke of Vienna and the King of Hungary might be an allusion to the peace settlements with Spain which King James I signed at Hampton Court on 18 August 1604. It has been suggested that these lines might refer to the Duke of Holst, Queen Anne's brother, who levied an army in London in December 1604 to support the new Protestant ruler of Hungary. However, Mistress Overdone's complaint in the same scene provides another set of allusions to memorable events which occurred in London in the...
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