Corso di Laurea magistrale ( ordinamento ex D.M. 270/2004 ) In Lingue e Letterature Europee Americane e Postcoloniali Tesi di Laurea A Play of Human Frailty: Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure Relatore Prof. Valerio di Vianino de Scarpis Correlatore Prof. Shaul Bassi Laureando Sara Rusconi Matricola 822708 Anno Accademico 2012 / 2013 Contents Introduction 2 1. The Genre of Comedy in Shakespeare’s time 5 1.1. Shakespeare’s comedy 9 1.2. Introduction to the “Problem Plays” 13 2. Labeling Measure for Measure 22 2.1. Sources 35 3. The Characters 54 3.1. The Disguised Ruler 54 3.2. The Duke’s Surrogate 84 3.3. Women in Measure for Measure 104 3.4 . Comic Characters 132 Conclusion: A Failed Happy Ending 151 Bibliography 155 ~ 1 ~ Introduction William Shakespeare wrote most of his works toward the end of the sixteenth century, including tragedies, comedies and history plays. Nevertheless, toward the last part of his career, in the first years of the seventeenth century, his style changed, offering a range of plays which differ from the traditional canon. It’s in this period that Measure for Measure (Fig.1) made its first appearance, seemingly on the 26 th December 1604, as part of the Christmas royal entertainments, just shortly after the accession to the throne of England of King James I 1.The following work deals precisely with Measure for Measure . The nature of this play is quite ambiguous, because it cannot be listed among the tragedies or the comedies, nor is it a history play. So what? This dissertation is going to try to throw some light on this question. First of all, an introduction to the world of comedy, and in particular Shakespeare comedy, will make clear what the main features of this kind of play are; furthermore, some considerations about the so called “problem plays” will be the frame of reference for the object of this dissertation, which is an analysis of the main characters and topics in Measure for Measure , along with some comparisons with other plays by Shakespeare, such as Hamlet and All’s Well That Ends Well . Thus, in defining what kind of play Measure for Measure is and what are its sources, also what Shakespeare’s aim was and what he wanted his audience to perceive, will become clear. In the chapter that follows, the main characters are taken into consideration, analyzing their behavior, their role and function in the play. The first section of the third chapter focuses on the disguised Duke of Vienna, Vincentio, who decided to leave his dukedom to Angelo, his Deputy, for a while, in order to let him mend the situation, which was getting out of hand. Indeed, the Duke had been too lax with his people up to that time and, as a consequence, Vienna had become a city of corruption and licentiousness. This topic leads us into the following section, which 1 Kevin A. Quarmby, The Disguised Ruler in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries , Ashgate Publishing Ltd., Farnham: Surrey, 2012, p.105; ~ 2 ~ Fig.1. Photo of the first page of Measure for Measure from a facsimile edition (1996) of the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays, published in 1623. ~ 3 ~ is dedicated to the character of Angelo; this man has received the hard task of ruling Vienna when almost no rules existed any more. Further on, another section is dedicated to the women of this play, especially to the character of the pure Isabella; then, also there are: the sweet Mariana, Claudio’s mistress, namely Juliet and the lecherous Mistress Overdone, a brothel keeper. The last section of the third chapter focuses on the figures of the clowns and the way they differ from those we find in Hamlet or Twelfth Night . Eventually, we shall come to learn that this play’s finale is nothing but “a failed happy ending”, because notwithstanding the apparent status of solved things through a series of marriages, the real truth is that beyond these fictional resolutions, there is something obscure, the gloomy significance of the play that Shakespeare may have wanted to convey to his audience. In the end some conclusions are drawn that focus on the listing of the play, on its deep significance and its impact on the Jacobean audience. ~ 4 ~ 1. The Genre of Comedy in Shakespeare’s Time The first thing that comes to the mind when we talk about comedy is something that makes people laugh. Yet, this is not enough, because the question that arises as a consequence is: what is it that makes people laugh? Laughter is generally caused by the familiarity of the situation; this means that the audience identifies with the character and thinks: “What would I do in that situation?”. As Penny Gay points out, “the community recognises its own passion for drama, and laughs, not in contempt like the on stage audience, but in delighted acknowledgement of that irrational need – and of the courage of the actors who would respond to it, whatever absurdity that may involve.” 2 Another reason can be found in the situation in which a snobbish character is taken down, punished by making him look funny. In general, we laugh at people who are in a difficult situation that the audience knows will be solved, and that makes them look funny. These are examples of what Penny Gay calls “visual comedy, that is, the undermining of seriously intended speech with bodily incongruities or indignity.” In her essay “Comedy as Idea and Practice”, she also refers to another reason people laugh, namely the so called “aural laughter-producing mechanism”, that is set in motion “when a character mangling and misapplying the English language tickles the collective funnybone because of his departure from the norm” (such as Constable Elbow’s malapropisms in Measure for Measure ). However, apart from laughter, comedy is a narrative form based on some precise expectations: notwithstanding the apparently tragic beginning of the story that is usually characterized by a situation of disorder, at the end, the denouement has to bring happiness, at least among the main characters. Indeed, its happy ending is precisely one of the fundamental features in a comedy; many things can happen during the unfolding of the plot; but whatever may happen, the result has always to 2 Penny Gay, The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare’s Comedies , Cambridge University Press, 2008, p.3. ~ 5 ~ be the same: at the end, the audience expect an image of happiness, at least for some characters, generally achieved through marriage, family reconciliations, and/or feasts. Marriage is very important for the happy ending of comedy, since it gives the idea that harmony has been achieved, and the children begot as a result of this union constitute the certainty that society will develop and grow. This consideration leads to reflect on an interesting point: comedy does not imply only laughter and happiness; comedies show that human life is nothing but a farce and even if we can have the impression that society has achieved a certain order, in the end, people are naturally inclined to overturn that order by acting stupidly. In general, comedies are characterized by some fixed features that of course can change from situation to situation: the leading force of a comedy is clearly love; people in love, but not only them, usually do stupid things, act foolishly and often behave in a ridiculous way. The difficult situations the characters have to face are taken too seriously, showing how generally people react when in trouble; in other words, people tend to cross their bridges before they come to them. Another feature of comedy is the caricature, that is “a description of a person or thing that makes them seem ridiculous by exaggerating some of their characteristics” 3. Caricatures in comedies are a means to show a society’s flaws. The structure of comedy is based on three main moments: exposition, complication and then resolution. Exposition is necessary to show the audience what is going to happen. The complication phase is characterized by the development of the problems the characters will have to face throughout the story; this stage is generally the moment in which disorder prevails. At the end of the play, all the problems are solved in the denouement of the plot. The three main models of comedy in England, before Shakespeare’s theatre, are something that is worth attention before moving to Shakespeare’s comedy in particular. The first one is Roman comedy, that included the plays of Terence and Plautus; their comedies were used in schools in order to teach the Latin language. 3 Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English, edited by Sally Wehmeier, Oxford University Press, 2005. ~ 6 ~ Roman comedies were usually based on the love between two youths who, thanks to their witty servants’ help, were able to stay together notwithstanding their vexed fathers’ opposition. Some typical characters of Roman comedy are the boastful soldier, the doctor and the nagging wife (models that Shakespeare later used in his plays). Later, in the sixteenth century, Italian comedy developed into two different branches: the commedia erudita and the commedia dell’arte . The first one was conceived for the higher classes and for academies, while the commedia dell’arte is not exactly a genre of drama, since the performance of the plot is not based on written texts, but on sketches or scenarios; as a matter of fact, it is an improvised comedy. These scenarios, Louise Clubb points out, “memorialize several decades of experience in the Italian professional theatre and demonstrate much of its range. They attest to a continual mining of the kinds of fictive material also used