Paper Written For ENGL 216

Here's a posting of the paper I wrote on Measure for Measure for Brit Lit I:

With a title drawn from the bible, Measure for Measure is one of Shakespeare’s works that appears clearly within the religious context of his times. This problem comedy deals with the moral nature of government and order. Mercy is cast as the critical factor in this discussion, as it becomes the underlying catalyst for the play. In first examining the analysis of Northrop Frye and then turning to an evaluation of the human aspects of the characters we see in Harold Bloom’s writings we can clearly see each individuals layered existence within these concepts of both the spiritual and natural realms of late Renaissance England.
The venerable Northrop Frye provides us with an excellent summary of Elizabethan England’s cosmological view of nature and the divine. His chapter on King Lear, looks into depth at what nature is in the understanding of Shakespeare’s audiences. It is a multifaceted word for multilayered universe. The first and highest level is that of heaven itself. This is the seat of the Christian God. The second level can be seen from Earth, and are the heavens. The stars within the heavens are made of the purest elements, and as such are the visible manifestations of the first level of the universe. The Garden of Eden was made up of the same material as the stars, and thus inhabited the same basic plane that the heavens did. Man then moved into the third level of nature. It is an existence that is morally superior to the nature inhabited solely by animals. This is the level of moral order, the best we can hope to achieve while in the plane of the living. The fourth level of nature is the base level of animals. It is the crude world of Darwin’s survival of the fittest ideology. This the lens through which Touchstone in As You Like It sees the world. It also the plane that mankind is falling to as we descend further from the divine realms of the Christian God. The last level is hell. (Frye 1986, pg.106)

In the end of the first act of Measure for Measure we see Vincentio leave his dukedom in the hands of the rather base character Angelo. I say base, because Angelo is a man of crude rules and morals governed by that fourth level of nature. He is a man of outward angelic morals, but at his innermost root is driven by the animalistic godless fourth level of nature. The Duke is aware of these short comings, but only after all the problems Angelo has been causing. This revelation comes through his conversation with Lucio, who believes the Duke to be the friar. (Act III, 2, 250-). It appears the Duke is aware of his shortcomings prior to this, as he quite clearly was aware of Angelo’s less than moral treatment of Marianna, his betrothed wife. Despite this, Vincentio is more than happy to hand over the keys of the city to an individual he knows is less than virtuous. This does serve an important and well planned out aspect to this particular work. Duke Vincentio truly is the Duke of Dark Corners as Lucio points out in Act IV. He possesses a deep understanding of the underpinnings of the universe, and how to manipulate them to desired ends. In this way the Duke is a pre-cursor to the Tempest’s Prospero. Only by leaving the city in the hands of a base character like Angelo, can their be any salvation, any return to righteous order. It was clear that order, in particular moral order, was on the verge of collapse prior to Vincentio’s departure (Bloom 1998, pg. 360). In the appointment of Angelo, there is a monumental swing in the direction of law. Law in this particular case, does not preclude itself to be moral. Often in the case of Shakespeare’s works, the law is anything but moral. Look to the example of Midsummer’s Night Dream and the adherence to the strict Athenian Law. The law works here on the same level. Shakespeare is again playing with the fundament differences of legal order and moral order. In Angelo’s workings of the law, there is no aspect of mercy. Mercy if course being, one of the guiding principles of christianity. With no mercy present in laws to institute morality in a city devoid of it, there is no hope of their success. A city with no morals, handed down from the heavens above, is one reduced to level of sheer animals. It is a region populated by creatures who organize their existence solely upon basic carnal levels. The carnal aspects of Vienna were beginning to consume the city and draw into this lower level, but only with the ascension of Angelo can the final moral blow be given to this city.
The interesting aspect of Angelo is that he, like the law, is not what he appears to be. According to R.W. Chambers “ ....Angelo is not so called for nothing. He is “angel on the outward side” -an ascetic saint in the judgment of his fellow citizens, and despite the meanness of his spirit, nay, because of it, a saint in his own esteem” (Muir 1965, pg 91). Angelo is in all outward viewings, to be saintly, and thus the best to uphold the laws concocted to end immorality. Appearances are often quite deceptive, and in the case of Shakespeare in general, Measure for Measure in particular, this more often than not rings true. As we later learn, Angelo is anything but angelic, specifically in his treatment of Marianna but more importantly in his lack of mercy. Here, the Bard is playing on aspects of human perception. Blinded by that fourth level of nature, it is beyond our scope to understand the divine, and hence the absolute moral[1]. This is a man who is regularly issuing decrees of death against people breaking a law contrived to prevent the very thing that assures their continuation in nature[2]. Angelo cannot be truly angelic as he lacks the key virtue of mercy. Their is much human quality to be intermingled with Christian morality, and as such the very things that Angelo stands against seem to deny the citizens of Vienna to be of human level closer to that fourth level of nature. Angelo, until the final scene of the play, never seems to doubt his own self importance[3]. This finds him morally defective in another sense, but also helps to play him against the divinely humane aspects of Vincentio. Vincentio is full of self doubt, as is evident in his departure from power. He does believe himself holy enough to solve the moral issues of his town. We are divine in that we follow the creation pattern of God. To suggest we can know everything is to commit one of the highest sins. The sin of hubris. Angelo carries himself with the air of divine being, the self-assured smugness that comes with knowing all to the extent of the knowledge of the gods. His repression of the carnal knowledge can easily be linked to God casting out Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden for learning that same knowledge. The Duke is humane, he is the opposite of Angelo in most every way. Interesting the Duke draws his divinity from being human, and as such a creation of God.
As the Duke becomes a friar, he merges political power with a religious one. It is a strength that draws the divine power of the upper level of nature into a sort of moral reckoning at the human level. The Duke is clearly not fully initiated in this upper level, as Lucio, our play’s truth teller, a journalist according to Bloom (Bloom 1998, pg. 371), illustrates in his candid conversation with the Duke as friar:

“Duke: I never heard the absent Duke much detect for women. He was not
inclined that way
Lucio: O, sir, you are deceived .......
Who? Not the Duke? Yes, your beggar of fifty, and his use was to put a
Ducat in her clack-dish. The Duke had crotchets in him. He would be
Drunk, too: that let me inform you.” Act III, ii, 115-122

Lucio makes clear from his view of the Duke, that he was as much part of the animalistic nature of the world as the people he governed over. Although Vincentio has one major aspect that raises him above the rest of the base members of those he governs; mercy. Interesting with regards to the divine, Vincentio must inhabit both levels of nature. Only by drawing from both levels is mercy and moral order possible. Angelo is also one of these masses, and as such lacks just what it takes to stop Vienna from perpetual slide into the fourth level of nature. He is property of solely one level of existence. Due to this he is incapable of enacting any sort of moral order. Angelo may grasp at the upper level, but is incapable of attaining it. This steams primarily from his hubris. Lucio is also aware of the importance of mercy and highlights the brilliance of Vincentio as Duke : “He had some feeling of the sport. He knew the service, and that instructed him to mercy.” Act III, ii, 105-106. The sport he speaks of is the everyday life of the people of Vienna, and in particular the sexual exploits of the people. There is a clear knowledge of the presence of the carnal animalistic existence of humankind, but there is also an important moral aspect of that existence.
Mercy is the critical element of this. It is the lens through which enacting laws to maintain a moral order in the carnal world must be observed through. Angelo has no real concept of this carnal knowledge and thus his extreme stance against any violation of his laws against fornication. His lack of the knowledge[4] of what is to be human perhaps alienates him from the understanding the importance of mercy. The Duke gains his power through this, Angelo loses his in this same aspect. Again we are shown here that what appears to be is not so often what really is. What makes Angelo an interesting character, is that while we very much part of the fourth level of nature, he appears to make every effort to seem above it. He is not what he seems, and as such can hold no divine salvation for the town. The Duke is redemption of Vienna. Without him this play cannot end in any other way than a tragedy. It is he who suggests the infamous bed trick, that saves Claudio and restores Marianna to glory. After the Dukes rise to the third level of nature as the friar, and his subsequent return to the Vienna of the fourth level he realizes the vital nature of mercy in the morality in law. The Duke appears as the embodiment of the idea of mercy to his people, this made evident in the lines of Lucio. As the divine investment of moral law in the city Vienna, it is realization that he must make in order affect moral change in the order of Vienna. His mercy, but sparing not only Claudio but also Angelo, brings about the comedic conventions of the multiple marriages that end this play. It is through mercy that Duke Vincentio restores moral order to his kingdom.
Works Cited


Frye, Northrop . Northrop Frye On Shakespeare. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.

Bloom, Harold . Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York: Riverhead Books, 1998.
Muir, Kenneth , ed. Shakespeare The Comedies: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall Inc, 1965.
[1] What I mean by the absolute moral, is the supreme morals as occur in heaven. This level of morality does not and cannot completely occupy our levels of existence, because of crude corruptibility of nature.
[2] Copulation. The reason why animals exists is to procreate. As elements of this fourth level of nature, humans are is some essence animals. This law is unnatural, and thus does not belong here.
[3] This self assumed importance and superiority is clearly illustrated in Act II, i, when Angelo leaves Escalus to deal with the immoral rabble he cares not judge.
[4] What is made clear in this play, is that he never “formalized” his marriage with Marianna. Angelo has no knowledge of sex, primarily because he has never participated in. The Duke stands apart and opposite of this, especially if he has been visiting the whore houses like Lucio claims he has.