As I finish skimming the surface of Lake Measure for Measure, I’m readying myself for some deeper dives into the text.
Some of the concepts I’m considering:
- foreshadowing (pirates, dowry)
- Mariana (parallels to All’s Well That Ends Well‘s Helena; her pasts, Tennyson’s poem)
- concept of a woman’s role
- the duke and women
- Angelo
- Angelo/Isabella parallels
- sexual harassment
- male power
- symbolic settings
- in-play playwrights
- marriages and the future of Vienna
- prostitution and the London suburbs
- character ages
- the quality and quantity of mercy
- doubling/substitutes/deputies
plus, of course, the usual suspects of the trip to Bawdy-ville, textual stage directions, scansion for acting clues, midpoint, and a look at the numbers.
Any other suggestions?