SOURCE: "Form and Contexts in Measure for Measure" in Critical Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 1, Spring, 1970, pp. 55-72.

In the essay that follows, Weil studies the apparent discrepancies between the form of the first and second halves of Measure for Measure, arguing that Shakespeare 's design can be viewed as comprehensive only if the play 's falling action "is played in a light comic, often farcical, vein. " Weil maintains that Shakespeare parodies the melodrama of his sources and highlights the limitations of comic conventions, but at the same time "stretches them into new possibilities. "

I

Among the most challenging problems presented by Measure for Measure is why Shakespeare so thoroughly terminates before mid-play the dramatic intensity of his early acts. Although readers and critics have recognized this slackening of tension and suspense, few have been willing to grant that the dramatist may have carefully planned this change of mode. None...