AO5 Critics MM

• The Duke acts analogous to God –Gless
• Isabella shows spiritual arrogance –Gless
• Innocent, not naive –Dionisotti, 1978
• Frightened of sexuality –Dionisotti, 1978
• Crave simplicity and order and certainty –Dionisotti, 1978
• Isabella recognises her own sensuality –Stevenson, 1983
• Agonised whisper of more than our brother is our chastity –Judi Dench, 1962
• The Duke constantly uses other people –Allam, 1987
• The Duke suffers a deep personal crisis –Allam, 1987
• Act V is a ritual of purification –Allam, 1987
• A hateful work –Coleridge
• Indignation when Angelo is spared –Johnson
• The Duke is more absorbed in his own plots than in the welfare of the state –Hazlitt
• Isabella’s rigid chastity –Hazlitt
• The tyranny of nature and circumstance over human activities –Pater
• Isabella is inadvertently suggestive –Lever
• Isabella has an underlying keen appetite –Hawkins
• Isabella suffers a gradual loss of autonomy –Reifer
• Isabella holds absolute positions –Cox
• The Duke represents the divine principle of justice and mercy -Knight
• The Duke is obsessed with image mongering –Coursen
• Authoritarian repression–Dollimore
• Terrified questions, broken rhythms –Miles
• Angelo’s very name contradicts with his own desires –Wharton
• Scales of Justice are the prevailing image of the play –Lewis
• Shakespeare’s title announces an idea –Gibbons
• Public figures treat the world as a stage
• Polarisation of social life- Gibbons
• Pompey challenges legal and religious concepts of society
• Unconsciously revealing wordplay
• The Duke is a kindly father –Miles
• Isabella’s chastity is rancid –Quiller Couch
• Desire in Shakespeare, is often a kind of obsession, a fixation on another which tends to paralyse the self to a rigid posture- Terry Eagleton
• Desire must find its own natural, stable form, known as the institution of marriage- Terry Eagleton
• The Duke has placed Angelo in power because he ‘expects that he will . . . purge the city of the fever that has afflicted it. This will make it possible for [the Duke] to . . . reintroduce moderate rule, and thus gain the respect of the chastised citizenry- Nalin Ranasinghe
• (Isabella) is fearfully devoted to a contentless idea of chastity that makes it impossible for her to entertain affection for anything in the world. She leaps to the conclusion that even filial love will lead to sin and disgrace- Nalin Ranasinghe
• [Measure for Measure] can be called a comedy chiefly because it has a happy ending- Chute
• Measure for Measure holds today an unassailable position as chief “problem” among the various plays of Shakespeare- Rosalind Miles
• Measure for Measure is a critic’s delight, for the nature of the drama and the intention of the author are sufficiently eclipsed as to permit the most highly individual interpretations- Rosalind Miles
• The play ‘considers the need for statutes, laws to govern human appetites and ensure domestic tranquility- Daniel Colvin