Measure for Measure
Your first 4 to 5 page (1000 to 1,250 words) essay will be an exercise in close reading of an important passage in Measure for Measure which you will then connect to other key passages that amplify and deepen the theme or question you develop. Choose early. You’ll want to take notes for documentation as you reread. Your paper should have an arguable thesis—shoot for a level two or three thesis Be prepared to defend your thesis and show reasonable progress when you confer with me on that date.
Offer a New Historical reading of the play as a reflection of the anxieties and questions of governance that were pronounced at the time of the play’s performance before King James on December 26, 1604. There had been two major plagues in ten years, one in 1593 that killed 15,000 Londoners, and another in 1603, which wiped out 36,000 of the roughly 200,000 population. There were also a series of bad harvests in the 1590s causing occasional famines and riots. Finally, Queen Elizabeth had not settled the succession question, her subjects feeling great anxiety over their desire for a smooth transition to the next ruler. It is said that “the English breathed a collective sigh of relief when the transfer of power from Elizabeth to James appeared peaceful” (Kamps and Raber 121). Analyze the play in terms of the very real anxieties it reflects.