#shakespeare's play measure for measure

[preraphaelitepaintings]

Claudio and Isabella

Artist: William Holman Hunt (English, 1827–1910)

Date: 1850

Medium: Oil paint on mahogany

Collection: TATE Britain, United Kingdom

Description

The picture illustrates the dilemma of Claudio and Isabella and is based on a scene from Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. Claudio's life can only be saved if his sister Isabella agrees to sacrifice her virginity to Angelo, the absent Duke's deputy. The moment is summed up by these lines from the play, which Hunt inscribed on the picture frame: 'Claudio. Death is a fearful thing. Isabella. And shamed life is hateful.' However, the painting is more than a mere illustration of Shakespeare's words, and Hunt conditions our response through the picture's subtle imagery.

[bethanydelleman]

I was talking about a historical male author I dislike because I found his works misogynistic and the person said, "Oh, well I suppose you don't read Shakespeare either." and I was like, "Shakespeare? SHAKESPEARE?!?! Of course I read Shakespeare, that man loved women."

Shakespeare wrote a wide variety of fleshed out female characters. He wrote Damsels in Distress, Cross-dressing Girlbosses, and Complex Female Villains. He wrote a woman who refused to sell her virtue to save her family and then shamed her brother for suggesting it. He wrote Taming of the Shrew and it's opposite, All's Well that Ends Well, in which the wife hunts down and tames the husband. He wrote men who are good because they listen to, trust, and defend women. He wrote women of all kinds. He wrote women who drive the plot and women doomed by the narrative. He wrote women in love and women who pathetically follow a man who doesn't like them and women in hatred. He wrote sensible women and silly women and everything in between of all ages.

I wish modern authors could write women as well as he did.

[aq2003]

david tennant + shakespeare

[mrs-starkgaryen]

Favourite Shakespeare's Comedies

After my other poll, I am going to be specific. There shall be a battle of the favourites!!

For-

Two Gentleman of Verona (comment 🐕)

Winter's Tale (comment ⌛️)

For the love of Shakespeare, please reblog for a better analysis

[transsexualcoriolanus]

obsessed with tragedies that were almost comedies and comedies that were almost tragedies and comedies in which the happy ending is actually tragic

[wonderpig204]

rewatching nbc hannibal with my mum, and then hearing her opinion of it once we finished it made me realise how much you have to interpret this series as i think it was intended: as an archetypal Shakespearian problem play.

it combines the discussion of drama and very grave topics with bursts of humour and recurring intellectual bits, essentially fitting into a similar tragicomedy genre as several of Shakespeare's plays

and this dichotomy of theme is set up from the very first episode!! like the whiplash scene cut between the discussions of the murder committed by hobbs' copycat and hannibal having a ball cooking her lungs to swelling classical music establishes this blending of genre from the beginning of the series.

hannibal's one liners (sometimes even LOOKING DOWN THE BARREL OF THE CAMERA *cough*s3 when he killed that guy with an ice pick*cough*) also add to this uneasy sense of comedy, one that one is only able to interpret and appreciate once having accepted that the atrocities being committed are just a staple of this storyline and universe that, although are used to convey meaning in different ways, are not indicative of the tone of the series as a whole.

like in measure for measure, for example, the basic facts of the story are that claudio is going to be executed, unless his sister gives up her morality. this threat of death hangs over the whole play, and most of the themes discussed in it are dark and complex ruminations on justice, power, and authority- this would lead the reader to expect a tragedy or some sort of drama. however, this is interlaced with occasional bouts of bawdy humour to lighten the mood, not dissimilar to hannibal's rather self-incriminating cannibal jokes in the midst of investigating murders that HE COMMITTED.

i just find it really interesting how differently one sees the show if not being able to get past the barrier of its dark and dreary themes.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[withasideofshakespeare]

Do you remember The Great Shakespeare Playlist?

Well, I've finally caught up with submissions, now with a new playlist on a Shakespeare-specific YouTube channel (also withasideofshakespeare) and individual playlists for each play!

Find out more (and listen to the main playlist or the playlists for your favorite plays) here:

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

feel free to share your thoughts as well

[artemlegere]

Mariana

Artist: Sir John Everett Millais, Bt (English, 1829–1896)

Date: 1851

Medium: Oil paint on mahogany

Collection: TATE Britain, United Kingdom

Description

Mariana is a character from Shakespeare’s play Measure for Measure. Her fiancé Angelo leaves after her family’s money is lost in a shipwreck. Still in love with him, she hopes they will be reunited. Here Millais shows Mariana pausing to stretch her back after working at some embroidery. Autumn leaves scattered on the ground suggest the passage of time. The painting was originally exhibited with lines from Alfred Tennyson’s poem ‘Mariana’: “She only said, ‘My life is dreary – He cometh not!’ she said; She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary – I would that I were dead!’”

[macbooth]

i need the tarot girlies and the shakespeare girlies to combine real quick cause uh I’m planning a shakespeare tarot deck and I need opinions on the plays i’ve put down for major arcana. yes some are not there, either i do not care for them or i could not think of a design for them. cope. 

[thinkingimages]

Measure for Measure, Lily Brayton as Isabella, 1907

[piedoesnotequalpi]

hello my brother! sure hope you don’t get into trouble with the law in a way that would require me to do something drastic! <3

(this is a propos this friday’s socshakes lol)

Hello! Sure hope I don't end up nearly getting executed over forgetting to submit paperwork! That would be wild huh

[imperiousphasmid]

i don't know what to caption this

[do-you-know-this-play]

[britneyshakespeare]

The gaslighting Duke of Vienna

[scorpiusmalfoylovesoscarwilde]

I get to write an essay on Hamlet's characterisation for my first marked assignment teehee *giggling kicking my feet*