#this is also just an excuse for me to again mention escalus being may and mercs primary caretaker cause their parents kinda suck

[montygatorguy]

honestly i think angelique and escalus would be friends. cause they’re both like the primary caretakers of a kid who’s close in relation to them but not their own child but theyre still great parental figures anyway. also since juliet and may are friends id imagine it would lead to them talking a bit.

[noshitshakespeare]

Loved that the last question was about Measure for Measure. Its one of my favourite Shakespeare plays even though it's less popular. Just brought my ticket for Measure for Measure at the RSC Theatre too so it's strange it's seems to be popping up everywhere atm. Did it have a hidden political meaning for the time of it's release at all? I heard most Shakespeare plays did?

Hi @cacticharlotte! I guess you haven’t yet been to see the RSC Measure for Measure (it’s this June, isn’t it?). I hope you have a great time! 

It’s been quite a popular play in the last few decades because it does contain a few really complicated roles that make for great star vehicles, and because there’s a lot of creative potential in staging and ending possibilities. But I think the proliferation of Measure for Measure productions lately also has also to do with the fact that it’s been gathering attention as ‘Shakespeare’s #metoo play’. Looking through recent reviews (both newspaper and academic) of recent productions it’s difficult to find one where the reviewer doesn’t mention the #metoo movement (Emma Smith’s newest book does it too). It looks like people feel quite strongly about it as a play that speaks to our times. 

As for a hidden political meaning… Well, Shakespeare is never so straightforward that there’s an explicit political meaning to his plays, but there certainly is some correlation between the play and topical issues. Even then his use of topicality is far more subtle than that of many writers of his time (including people like Ben Jonson and Thomas Nashe who got into serious trouble for their overt satires). 

The most often noted topicality in Measure for Measure is the resemblance between Duke Vincentio and King James I. The line critics often cite for this is ‘I love the people / But do not like to stage me to their eyes’ (1.1.67-68). This bears some correlation both to Queen Elizabeth’s speech in 1586, when she stated that ‘We princes, I tell you, are set on stages, in the sight and view of the world’, a line James I quoted. It’s a well-known fact that James was not keen on crowds.

Surveillance was also a pretty topical issue. Queen Elizabeth famously had eyes and ears everywhere, a fact that is presented as a symbol of her power in the so-called ‘Rainbow Portrait’ where she’s painted with eyes and ears all over her dress:

So you can see just how effective theyr knew such strategies to be, as well as making it known that spaying is going on. But if possible James I was even more obsessed with surveillance. He not only used surveillance, but actively took part in it like ‘the old fantastical duke of dark corners’ (4.3.147-48) in Measure for Measure. And the parallels will be pretty obvious when I say that he was known to spy on his own law courts in disguise. In fact, there are several stories of the kind, such as his going into London incognito with his wife a few days before the coronation and Royal Procession only to be recognised by the crowd that then thronged around him. On his secret visit to the Royal Exchange in 1604 (maybe after the play was written) he hoped to watch how things went on without being observed and once again, his visit was leaked to the crowds. These incidents might also have suggested the Duke’s dislike of crowds, as well as Angelo’s metaphor about how kings’ subjects ‘Quit their own part and in obsequious fondness / Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love / Must needs appear offence’ (2.4.27-30). It’s not explicitly clear what Shakespeare is saying about surveillance (that’s up to interpretation), but the fact that he makes it pretty central to his narrative in Measure for Measure couldn’t be more obvious. The 1994 TV adaptation makes much of this by using lots of CCTV footage and film cameras to draw attention to the way people watch and are being watched. So there’s another bit of modern significance to add to the first point about why the play is so popular now, because what was nascent then our society has taken to extremes.

Another similarity is in James’ savvy politics of theatricality. There’s been some critical attention on the way James ‘staged’ the pardon of Cobham, Markham and Grey, letting no one, not the victims and not his personal advisors, know about their reprieve until they were literally about the be executed. In fact, he went further and confused them by pretending their execution had been postponed after they’d made their final prayers and even arranging things so that they wouldn’t know the others had been let off the execution until the big unveiling at the end. You can see how the Duke’s way of making matters look as dire as possible before his forgiveness fest at the end contains echoes of James’ approach.

The final similarity is the one that many critics have thought might have occasioned the rather unusual set up of this play: the demolition of brothels in the London suburbs as a precaution against the plague in 1603, which may have been an excuse for getting rid of the unsightly lower orders of society prior to James’ coronation. Again, it’s not immediately clear what Shakespeare is doing with this idea, and the rather extreme measures taken by Angelo’s government to suddenly tighten up a law that hadn’t really been upheld before. But Pompey’s insightful idea that pimping would be legal ‘if the law would allow it’ (2.1.194) and his question to Escalus: ‘does your worship mean to geld and splay all the youth of the city?’ (2.1.197-98) does suggest some sense of a mismatch between the law and propriety and the way it treats natural and necessary human urges.

I do think it is possible to overstress these parallels though, and while there are undeniable cases to be made of the relevance of contemporary political events, it’s always worth bearing in mind that none of the plays are reducible to historical events, as if the references were their hidden or ‘true’ meaning. It’s equally possible that such events serve as an inspiration rather than political commentary for Shakespeare, so that they aren't direct social critiques, but explorations of questions suggested by topical issues of the time.