Measure for Measure (Wordsworth Classics) Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

Measure for Measure (Wordsworth Classics) Book

A dark and difficult play, Measure for Measure has been a popular play since the latter half of the 20th century for its prescient dramatisation of the issues of sexual and political hypocrisy, and the ways in which the state interferes in the private lives of its citizens. Set in Duke Vincentio's Vienna, where poverty, disease and prostitution are rife, Claudio and his fiancée Juliet are arrested for having sex before marriage, and Claudio is sentenced to death. Angelo, the Duke's deputy, who stands in for the Duke whilst he ostensibly goes off on a pilgrimage, enthusiastically endorses the sentence. In fact the Duke remains behind the scenes, watching Angelo as he falls for Claudio's sister Isabella, who comes to beg for her brother's life. Angelo is a wonderful creation, loathsome yet fascinating as he struggles with the double standards of his enforcement of draconian laws whilst lusting after the sister of the man he is prepared to execute, debating "The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?". No one is spared Shakespeare's withering look at the mores of early 17th-century life, not even the pimps and madams who try to get by in the midst of the Duke's bizarre and coercive disguises and performances. The deeply ambiguous ending of Measure for Measure confirms it as one of Shakespeare's most ambivalent and arguably despairing plays. --Jerry BrottonRead More

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  • Foyles

    Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English, University of Sussex. In the hope of saving her brother's life, should a woman submit to rape? Should the law be respected when its administrator is corrupt? How powerful in the state should religion become? Although Measure for Measure ends like a comedy, with reconciliations, forgiveness and marriages, it has often been regarded as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. The drama shows the difficulty of effecting an appropriate balance between judicial severity and mercy, between sexual repression and decadence, and between political vigilance and social manipulation. These problems remain topical, and, in Measure for Measure, they are given immediacy by vivid character-conflicts and memorably intense poetry. This is one of Shakespeare's most probing and powerful works.

  • BookDepository

    Measure for Measure : Paperback : Wordsworth Editions Ltd : 9781853262517 : 185326251X : 01 Dec 1999 : Although this play ends like a comedy, with reconciliations, forgiveness and marriages, it has often been regarded as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. It shows the difficulty of effecting an appropriate balance between judicial severity and mercy, between sexual repression and decadence, and between political vigilance and social manipulation.

  • ASDA

    Although this play ends like a comedy with reconciliations forgiveness and marriages it has often been regarded as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. It shows the difficulty of effecting an appropriate balance between judicial severity and mercy between sexual repression and decadence and between political vigilance and social manipulation.

  • Pickabook

    William Shakespeare, Cedric Watts (Editor), Cedric Watts

  • 185326251X
  • 9781853262517
  • William Shakespeare
  • 1 May 1995
  • Wordsworth Editions Ltd
  • Paperback (Book)
  • 144
  • New Ed
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