Questions on

Measure for Measure.

1. What is the first printed record of the play? Is there any evidence that it was produced in Shakespeare's day? What facts are used to fix the probable date of the play?

2. Indicate the Italian and English sources of the plot. What part is wholly Shakespeare's? How much time is employed in the action of the play?

3. Does it take place on consecutive days?

4. Mention the attributive epithets that Shakespeare affixes to some of the dramatis personæ. What do you take this to indicate as to the nature, in the main, of the play?

ACT FIRST.

5. What tribute does the Duke pay to Escalus's talents? With what office does he invest Angelo? How are the two men to be associated?

6. What is Escalus's opinion of Angelo?-what is the Duke's? 7. What is the keynote of Angelo's first speech?

8. In what condition does the Duke leave the State? Is he to renounce all duties and functions during his absence?

9. What view of himself does the Duke give in declining an escort out of the city?

10. How do you characterize Sc. i. as contributory to the plot? What time is likely to have elapsed between Scenes i. and ii.?

11. Give your inference concerning the spirit of the play from the pitch that is taken in Sc. ii. before the entrance of Mistress Overdone.

12. What trait of character allies her with Mistress Quickly; the Nurse of Romeo and Juliet, etc.?

13. To indicate Shakespeare's breadth of tolerance, what mention of a virtue of Claudio's do we find following close upon the heels of his besetting vice?

14. What edict does Pompey report? Point out the comedy of this whole passage between Pompey and Mistress Overdone.

15. Of Angelo's administration what first act do we see? What is its moral implication?

16. Does Claudio, in his first speech, suggest something of the quality of Hamlet's nature?

17. Explain the nature of the relation between Claudio and Juliet. What does Claudio say of the legal act that was applied to their case? In what light does Angelo's rigor place himself? 18. What traits of Isabella does Claudio expect will aid his case? Do we find that Isabella is thus underestimated?

19. Explain, Believe not that the dribbling dart of love can pierce a complete bosom.

20. Give in detail the Duke's purposes as he describes them to Friar Thomas.

21. Which of the two motives, that the Duke advances as explaining his aloofness, do you consider the stronger with him? 22. What is the subject of conversation between Isabella and Francisca when Lucio enters in Sc. iv.?

23. What indictment of Angelo does Lucio make? What does he say of the Duke's action? What was evidently Lucio's social standing?

24. Does Lucio convey the message of Claudio in suggesting the arts that Isabella should use with Angelo? What effect is produced by the arrangement of scenes in this Act, instead of the possible inversion of Scenes ii. and iii.?

ACT SECOND.

25. How does Escalus advise Angelo (Sc. i.) concerning the application of the law to Claudio? What irony is there in Angelo's reply?

26. Is the scene that follows with Elbow too long? How does Elbow compare in humour with Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing? What Shakespearian humour do you see in Pompey's Truly, sir, I am a poor fellow that would live?

27. There is evidently a dramatic purpose in this scene that travesties justice;-what is it? Speaking in extenuation of Angelo's severity, Escalus says, Mercy is not itself that oft looks so. Interpret this.

28. How is the thought of pardoning Claudio managed in Sc. ii.

so as to grow in intensity and to take its place as a part of the justice of things?

29. What is the temper of Angelo's speech (Sc. iii. 37-41)? May it be said to contain the very kernel of the play?

30. Explain lines 74-79.

31. When does justice become pity in Angelo's philosophy? How near right was he? Is the ground that Angelo took too high for human agency to stand upon?

32. By what turn in Isabella's pleading was Angelo won to reconsider Claudio's case?

33. Was it to avenge his injured self-pride that Angelo meditated the damage to Isabella's chastity? How does Angelo himself think his temptation comes?

34. Sc. iii., while adding little to the action, yet adds what to the plot? Does the Duke stand for the overruling Providence?

35. Compare the speech of Angelo (Sc. iv.) with the prayerscene of the King in Hamlet. What is the difference between a man whose conscience is weighted with a crime and one whose mind is preoccupied with a crime to be committed?

36. What passage here helps to establish the date of the play? 37. Angelo implies what in lines 35, 36? Is there honesty in Angelo's apostrophe to these filthy vices (line 43 et seq.)?

38. When Angelo accuses Isabella of craft in not following his meaning, is he not himself employing craft to lead her into a trap? 39. Did Angelo add cruelty to his other traits? Why could not Isabella denounce Angelo for what he is?

ACT THIRD.

40. What is the general tenor and temper of the Duke's monologue in the beginning of Act III.? Does anything in Hamlet match it for bitterness?

41. What is the dramatic purpose in Isabella's delay in coming to the point of Angelo's demand, as she repeats it to Claudio? What reflection of herself do you see in Claudio?

42. Is it the real Claudio who breaks down later and begs Isabella to make the sacrifice?

43. Compare the speech of Claudio with Hamlet's reflection upon the hereafter. How do they show the difference between the man of senses and the man of thought?

44. How do you account for the words with which Claudio leaves the stage?

45. How does the Duke undertake to solve the difficulty? 46. What covert allusions may Shakespeare have intended (Sc. ii.) in Pompey's speech of the "two usuries"?

47. Had it been Claudio, instead of Lucio, who was asked, would he have gone bail for Pompey?

48. Does Shakespeare intend "poetic justice" in the Scene where Lucio berates the Duke to his face, thus punishing him for his masquerading?

49. Are the reflections of the Duke (lines 196 et seq) in character?

50. What motive had Escalus for wishing to mitigate the severity of Angelo's sentence upon Claudio?

51. Analyze the thought of the speech with which the Duke concludes this Act.

ACT FOURTH.

52. What is the emotional effect of the song with which the Act opens? Compare this episode with Tennyson's "Mariana of the Moated Grange," and say what is the internal harmony of the two. 53. What suitability to the time and occasion do you see in the speech of the Duke beginning with line 60? Compare it with Act III. Sc. ii. 196-200.

54. Does Pompey turned hangman become more or less repellent than he was before?

55. How, through the manner of leading up to the point, is the surprise of Angelo's letter (line 123) made keener? How does it affect one's feeling about the character of Angelo?

56. From the Barnardine episode what impression does one get of the nature of the Duke's government?

57. What change in the natural evolution of events does the Duke introduce in Sc. ii.? Through what supporting authority is he able to effect this?

58. What picture of prison life do you find in Sc. iii.? Was it a picture of contemporaneous conditions?

59. How is the audience made aware that the term of the Duke's masquerading is about to close?

60. What part of the action of the play takes place at the Moated Grange of Mariana?

61. How does Lucio turn the tables upon himself?

62. What is the episodic value of Sc. iv.?

63. Explain the reflections of Angelo beginning with line 21.

64. What preparations for the events of Act V. are made in the fourth Act?

ACT FIFTH.

65. Recount the train of events as they develop in the fifth Act. 66. Is the interest abated by the fact that the action of the play becomes artificial, and controlled by the Duke as deus ex machina? 67. Is there still an interest derived from the fact that Isabella and Mariana only partly understand the purposes of the Duke? 68. How does Angelo bear up under the uncovering of his crimes?

69. Does it seem a hardship that Lucio alone of all the evil-doers has to suffer punishment?

70. Had Shakespeare not insisted upon turning the play into a comedy, how would the action have 'run on to a natural conclusion?

71. What evidences do you see throughout the play of a comic purpose, even though the elements dealt with are tragic?

72. Mention qualities in Lucio that count on the nobler side of life.

73. Does Shakespeare find in Claudio any trait that is distinctly condemnable? What is the complete impression that you derive of his character?

74. Compare the appeal to mercy that Isabella makes to Angelo with that that Portia makes to Shylock and account for the differences in spirit and character.

75. What can you say of the Duke? What justice is there in Lucio's description of him as the fantastical Duke of dark corners?

76. When is it likely that the Duke first knew of the story of Mariana and consequently of Angelo's relation to her? How does this bear upon the point of his selecting Angelo to represent him?

77. Which is the more subtle character-the Duke or Angelo? 78. Did the Duke ever suspect Angelo?

79. If not, what view thereby do you get of Angelo and of the Duke?

80. Is not Angelo the greatest ironic conception of Shakespeare? 81. Does Shakespeare in this play often violate consistency of