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A review by rc90041
Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare
4.0
A strange, discomfiting, uncomfortable play. As Harold Bloom calls it, a “problem play.” A problem in that the reader has no idea what to make of it: the available boxes for the plays—comedy, tragedy, history, romance—don’t seem to be appropriate categories in which to file this play, technically a comedy, but full of darkness, lust, corruption, spite, and pain.
The play contains some profound passages, especially Vincentio’s meditation on death (III.i.10-41):
(III.i.5-13.)
The play never flies, though, as it’s caught in the mire of this strange, noisome Vienna. And even the superficial sweetness of the ending is marred by raw cruelty. A strange but crucial play in Shakespeare’s oeuvre, and one that’s worth revisiting.
The play contains some profound passages, especially Vincentio’s meditation on death (III.i.10-41):
Be absolute for death: either death or life
Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason this with life:
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would keep; a breath thou art,
Servile to all the skyey influences
That dost this habitation where thou keeps’t
Hourly afflict; merely, thou art death’s fool,
For him thou labors’t by thy flight to shun,
And yet run’st toward him still.
(III.i.5-13.)
The play never flies, though, as it’s caught in the mire of this strange, noisome Vienna. And even the superficial sweetness of the ending is marred by raw cruelty. A strange but crucial play in Shakespeare’s oeuvre, and one that’s worth revisiting.