Measure for Measure (Vol. 33) | Alvin Kernan (essay date 1995)
Alvin Kernan (essay date 1995)
SOURCE: "The King's Prerogative and the Law," in Shakespeare, the King's Playwright: Theater in the Stuart Court, 1603-1613, Yale University Press, 1995, pp. 50-70.
[In the following excerpt, Kernan discusses aspects of Measure for Measure that Shakespeare may have specifically crafted in order to address a principle concern of his theater troupe's new patron, King James I: the relation of the monarch to the law of the land.]
Modern audiences have found Measure for Measure a difficult, complex play, and it has long been known as one of Shakespeare's "dark comedies," or one of his "problem plays." Interpretation has been busy over the years, and the lenient Duke who turns the enforcement of the laws over to "the prenzie Angelo" has been said to figure everything from God leaving humans the freedom to work out their own salvation, to the Freudian ego—the scene is Vienna—withdrawing...
[The entire page is 2546 words long]
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