Politics, Power, and Purpose in Shakespeares Measure for Measure Essay

Politics, Power, and exercise in Shakespeares banknote for MeasureIn Shakespeares Measure for Measure, Vincentio, Duke of Vienna, observing that his duchy has fallen into licentiousness and chaos through his neglectful brass, has pretended to distribute Vienna and has turned over the government to Angelo, his upright and up-tight Deputy and that the Duke has refractory to remain in Vienna, in disguise, so that he may watch out how Angelos character is revealed or transformed in the crucible of the power with which he has been invested. The Duke insures Friar Thomas, who is party to the plot Lord Angelo is precise,Stands at a bulwark with envy, scarce confessesThat his blood flows, or that his appetiteIs more to bread than st single. and so shall we seeIf power change purpose, what our seemers be. (1.3.5-54) My subject is how power changes--or at least influences--purpose. But the purpose in question is not, as in the play, the government of a city or of a state, nor ev en (as in the crusade of Angelo) the government of ones psychological and physical appetites, but the creation of a rifle of art, of a theatrical action. Talking about Angelo, the Duke poses his assertion as a conditional he wishes to test if power change purpose. My hypothesis is that, in the theatre, power does indeed change purpose. I base this hypothesis upon some(prenominal) premises that the theatre, as a complex collaborative art form, depends upon the coordination of the talents and temperaments of a wide range of individuals that, in the theatre, these individuals must be organized into a touch which inescapably involves the establishment and articulation of power that theatrical artists are, by their very nature, sensitive, e... ...ulates the other characters and, like a playwright, creates scenarios for them to play etc., etc. I am, I believe, arguing something else altogether. The play is not alluding to its mode of performance to tell its report. The play and t he performance are simply telling the same story a story about the same power relationships that informed the process by which the performance was created. Its not that animation is like the theatre. Its that the play and the performance and the theatre in general are built upon the raw materials of life upon wayward human beings struggling to work together to live with one another in the world. The story that any production of Measure for Measure tells is that power, in the theatre as in life, changes purpose. Just as the Duke tests Angelo, when we go to the theatre, we go to see, If power change purpose, what our seemers be.