Open Silences in Shakespeares Measure for Measure :: Shakespeare Measure for Measure

How Productions from 1720 to 1929 Close Shakespeares Open Silences in stair for MeasurePrologue Playtext. Performance. and Open Silences In the Preface to his stochastic variable of Shakespeares plays, and even as he vigorously defended the playwright against attacks by other neo-classical critics, Samuel Johnson nonetheless also offered his give birth survey of Shakespeares weaknesses. Among the more well-known and provocative remarks is his assessment of the ends of the plays It may be observed, that in many of his plays the latter part is evidently neglected. When he rig himself near the end of his work, and in view of his reward, he shortened the labour, to second the profit. He therefore remits his efforts where he should most vigorously exert them, and his mishap is improbably produced or imperfectly represented. Preface, in Sherbo VII 71-72. That Measure for Measure, in particular, was taken to be an example of Shakespeares tendency to remit his efforts, and that these failures created problems about the ending of the play symptomatic about larger issues of genre, is testified to by Charlotte Lennoxs often quoted check The comic Part of Measure for Measure is all Episode, and has not habituation on the principal upshot, which even as Shakespeare has managed it has none of the Requisites of Comedy. Great and crying(prenominal) Crimes, such as those of Angelo, in Measure for Measure, are properly the Subject of Tragedy, the Design of which is to show the fatal Consequences of those Crimes and the Punishment that never fails to attend them. The well-off Follies of a Lucio may be exposed, ridiculed and corrected in Comedy. That Shakespeare made a wrong Choice of his Subject, since he was resolved to torture it into a Comedy, appears by the low Contrivance, absurd Intrique, and improbable Incidents he was obliged to introduce in order to bring about three or four Weddings rather of the one good Beheading, which was the Consequence n aturally expected. Lennox, I 27, quoted in Vickers, 4 112. As we shall see, these strictures reappear in at least one magnetic declination of the play, namely in Francis Gentlemans commentary on the play in the 1773 edition (Bells edition) examined below. In this presentation, and concentrating on the issues raised by Johnson, rather than the wider issues raised