SOURCE: Ashizu, Kaori. “‘Pardon Me?’: Judging Barnardine's Judge.” English Studies 78, no. 5 (September 1997): 417-29.

In the following essay, Ashizu examines Duke Vincentio’s poor treatment of the prisoner Barnardine in Measure for Measure, and argues against conceptions of the Duke as an ideal or godlike authority.

Measure for Measure is certainly one of Shakespeare's most controversial works; it has elicited and continues to elicit a diversity of violently conflicting interpretations. However, no matter how various the elements and interests in these controversies, the arguments seem to converge after all on one subject—how to see Duke Vincentio. The critical commentary on the Duke falls, roughly speaking, into the following two schools. The first consists of the anti-Duke critics, including many early critics such as William Hazlitt¹ and E. K. Chambers² as well as recent ones like A. D. Nuttall:³ they regard the Duke as unpleasant or even repulsive, and...