Measure for Measure

by William Shakespeare , Edited by Brian Gibbons , With contributions by Angela Stock

• ISBN13: 9780521854481
• ISBN10: 0521854482
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-07-17
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Since the rediscovery of Elizabethan stage conditions early this century, admiration for Measure for Measure has steadily risen. It is now a favorite 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 that shock the audience even to the end. The introduction describes the play's critical reception and stage history and how these 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.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations

Acknowledgements

Preface

List of abbreviations and conventions

Introduction: Date

Puritanism, political allusion and censorship

The sources and their shaping

The play

The play on the stage

Note of the text

List of characters

THE PLAY

Textual analysis

Reading list.