Source: "Physic That's Bitter to Sweet End: The Tragicomic Structure of Measure for Measure," in Essays in I.iterature, Vol. XIV, No.1, Spring, 1987, pp. 15-36.

[Lanier disagrees with those critics who see Measure for Measure as a structural failure with an unsatisfying tacked an ending. By contrast, he contends that Shakespeare intentionally divided the play into halves, with the first wight tragic Scenes linked to the last eight comic scenes by one intermediary scene.

Lamer explains that Angelo's "transgressions" (displayed in his hypocritical behavior toward Claudio, Isabella, and Mariana) inform the play's tragic first half while Isabella's "tolerance" (displayed when she begs the Duke to spare Angelo's life is responsible far the play's comic second half Ultimately, Lamer argues that the split between tragic and comic is in fact what gives Measure for Measure the very unity that many scholars believe the play lacks.]

In 1949 E. M...