Measure For Measure

Third Series

William Shakespeare, A.R. Braunmuller, Robert N. Watson, A.R. Braunmuller, Robert N. Watson

• Publisher: The Arden Shakespeare
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781408151884
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Arte dramático shakespeariano

Often described as one of Shakespeare's 'problem plays', Measure for Measure explores issues of mercy and justice in corrupt Vienna. The Duke makes his strict moralistic deputy, Angelo, temporary leader of Vienna, while he disguises himself as a friar to witness all that ensues. In the comprehensive introduction to this new, fully-illustrated Arden edition, with commentary and notes from A. R. Braunmuller, Robert N. Watson explores the recent increased attention to the play and the shifting judgements of key characters such as the Duke and Isabella. He analyses the social foundations of these changes, their validity as readings of the text, and their manifestations in performance. It also explores the play's implications on topics including love, marriage, sexuality, consent, mortality, religion, statecraft, moderation, and theatre itself.

APPENDIX 1

Note on the text

THE PREPUBLICATION HISTORY OF MEASURE FOR MEASURE

The early history of Measure for Measure can be traced backwards from the First Folio. On 8 November 1623, the stationers Edward Blount and Isaac Jaggard, son of William, included ‘Measure for Measure’ in a Stationers’ Register entry of sixteen plays by Shakespeare not previously printed or entered to any other stationer.¹ This entry signified their sole right to print them. Measure for Measure is the fourth play in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories & Tragedies, ‘Published according to the True Originall Copies.… LONDON. Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed. Blount. 1623’, where it occupies two three-sheet, six-leaf quires signed F and G: the final page, G6^v, follows the last 22 lines of text with a note of location, ‘The Scene Vienna’, and a list of ‘The names of all the Actors’. Other comedies with comparable lists of roles are The Tempest, The Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Winter’s Tale, the first two and the last of the comedies in F, all printed for the first time, and all printed from transcripts made by the professional scrivener Ralph Crane.²

In the printing office of William and Isaac Jaggard at least three compositors set the twelve successive formes, each comprising what would be printed on one side of a sheet of paper, of the two quires, starting in the middle of each and working outwards, forme by forme, to the beginning and end. Identification of these compositors began with Charlton Hinman’s The Printing and Proof-Reading of the First Folio of Shakespeare.¹ One of the four, Compositor B, went on to set nearly half of the volume, implying his status as a permanent member of Jaggard’s printing office. In Measure for Measure, only the five whole pages assigned to B have remained as common ground between Hinman and successive revisers of his identifications. These are sigs F5^v, F6^r and G2^v, G3^r, G3^v.

In 1996, Peter W.M. Blayney summarized the state of play as it then was, identifying the stints of the other compositors as follows: C: F1^r, F1^v, F3^v, F4^r, F4^v, F6^v, G5^r; D: F2^v, F3^r; F: G5^v; the rest shared: C/D: F2^r, F5^r; C/F: G4^r; F/C: G2^r, G4^v, G6^r, G6^v; B/C/B: G1^r.² A chart by Brian Gibbons of developing and conflicting identifications confirms that only the five pages attributed to B have been accepted by all the scholars cited.³ Editors of Measure for Measure have in any case to face the fact that all pages but those five have been variously attributed to other compositors designated A, C, D, E and F (of whom A, E and F are no longer thought to be present), with the result that little in the text can be confidently attributed to the agency of a known typesetter of known habits.⁴ B’s five pages contain the text of 2.4.104–3.1.155 and 4.2.33–4.4.1. In his first stint B thus set two of the most emotionally tense and morally crucial passages in the play, the climax of Angelo’s assault on Isabella and the encounters of the condemned Claudio with the disguised Duke and with his sister. His later stint covers the Duke’s attempts to counter Angelo’s failure to keep his promise, including his bafflement with Barnardine.

The most recent contribution to the question of the Folio compositors, by Pervez Rizvi, is an impressive and fully documented challenge to the very basis of Hinman’s work.¹ Such scepticism about Hinman’s compositor analyses has put further pressure on the question of just how far identifications can contribute to understanding of the minutiae of the F text, more particularly in the case of a text already bearing the marks of a strong-minded and distinctive scribe:

Attribution of particular sections of text, if it can be ascertained, may be significant for editorial purposes since assumptions about the habits of a given compositor may be relevant when trying to infer what stood in the copy, or in establishing patterns of work in the printing house. Unfortunately, in the case of Measure for Measure it remains uncertain which compositors set a number of pages … Whatever stints they are allotted … the compositors reproduce a striking number of the peculiarities of their copy, allowing it to be certainly identified as the work of Ralph Crane.²

The F text

A few verse passages in F are certainly – and others possibly – mislined, either by Crane or by Jaggard’s compositors.³ These have exercised the ears of editors from Pope onwards. Easier both to account for and to put right are passages where F sets prose as if it were verse, with lines that fall short of filling the printer’s measure. These probably originate with Crane, and could have been retained by the printer because they improved accuracy in the process of ‘casting off’ copy.

Casting off copy was a procedure employed by hand printers. It had two aims: to estimate the cost of producing the book and to forecast exactly which sections of the printer’s copy would fall on each page of the printed book, thus enabling typesetting of pages out of sequence. Verse was easier to cast off accurately than prose, but inaccuracy could face a compositor with excess or insufficient copy to set in the space available, especially in the second forme to be set, as the first would already be at press and so beyond adjustment.

In the ensuing discussion most typographic details cited are identified by signature and Through Line Number (TLN), following Hinman’s numbering in the Norton Facsimile. Indications of tightness in the setting of Measure for Measure are found in the widely scattered evidence of four compositorial expedients to fit in lines that were too long for the measure. Ten of the fourteen instances of ‘&’ for ‘and’ save space in tight lines (at TLN 7 (F1^r), 374 (F2^v), 555 (F3^r), 802 (F4^r), 1446, 1493 (F6^v), 1637, 1724 (G1^v), 1996 (G2^v) and 2357 (G4^r)). Seven lines are turned over, their last word, or part-word, being printed above the line (at TLN 5 (F1^r), 214 (F1^v), 768 (F4^r), 1035 (F5^r), 2221 (G3^v) and 2472 (G4^v)). Two other expedients are used more sparingly: superscript reduction of words starting with ‘th’ appears at TLN 862 (F4^v), ‘y^e’ for ‘the’, and 2473 (G4^v), ‘y^u’ for ‘thou’, while the tilde to record omission of m or n is found at 170 (F1^v), ‘proclamation’, 975 (F4^v), ‘conscience’, and 2600 (G5^r), ‘from’. Conversely, as a sign of slight shortage of copy, on six pages a single full or short line of verse is divided and set over two lines, signalling a desire to fill more space. This occurs on sigs F2^v (1.4.73), F4^r (2.2.87), F5^r (2.4.37, 118), G4^r (4.6.12, 15; 5.1.19, 26, 32) and G4^v (5.1.68, 126). Appendix 2 supplies a textual note to each of the lines cited. A Folio page, sig. F1^v, containing 1.2.1–124, to which reference will be made for a number of details, is reproduced as Fig. 16 on p. 119; see pp. 118–20.

A further indicator of tight setting is the presence or absence of blank lines around scene headings and entry SDs within the text, especially at the start of scenes. Blanks are most frequent on sigs F2^v, G2^r and G4^r, where they are used in both columns; at the other end of the scale no bl...