Measure for measure - Nigel Wood

Measure for Measure has provoked widely different responses from generations of critics. Using the characters of Isabella and the Duke the play portrays in the most vivid terms the responsibilities of temporal and spiritual power - all set amidst the potential ironies of a society that has lost its moral bearings. Understood recently as a Problem Play in its refusal to offer clear moral guidelines, its action derives from various sources and motives, not the least of which is an unsparing anatomy of Jacobean England.;This volume approaches the play from four declared positions within literary criticism (performance study; new historicist feminism; reader response; and Foucaultian). It illustrates how complex critical theories might affect critical practice in detail; and illuminates both Measure for Measure and the theories themselves. The spread of perspectives has been carefully chosen with modern cultural and critical concerns in mind. A select bibliography and essay introductions by the volume editor help those new to theory to assimilate and apply it in reading or seeing the play.