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MEASURE FOR MEASURE is a dark comedy in which Angelo, a virtuous man, takes over the kingdom of Vienna while the Duke secretly disguises himself as a friar and goes around the country to see what condition his country is in. Angelo is sick of all the immorality in the country, so he inforces an old law that prostitution is illegal. He destroys all of the homes that were used as brothels, and he imprisons Claudio because he had sex with his soon-to-be wife Juliet. Claudio is to be executed by beheading for his lechery, and he gets a friend to go tell his sister Isabel, who is soon to be a nun, to convince Angelo to free Claudio. When Angelo sees Isabel, he is overcome with lust and tells her that the only way she can free her brother is to sleep with him, which she refuses.

The good thing is that there is a happy ending because no one dies. You'll end the play wondering how this can be a comedy, but it is actually quite good. It shows the weaknesses and strengths of human nature and the hypocrisy of government.

One of Shakespeares best
This play is very funny (Shakespeare is one of the greatest comedians of all time), but it is also a problem play--which causes problems. It is difficult to decide whether to laugh or not, or whether you like the characters or not. However, Shakespeare touches on some important issues that I find fascinating--justice/mercy, the responsibility of political leaders, and others. I recommend reading this play, laughing, and then really try to determine your own views on issues that are still pertinent today.

Mediocre or slightly below for Shakespeare.
When rating Shakespeare, I generally rate it as compared to other Shakespearean plays; otherwise, the almost unrelieved 4 and 5 star ratings would not be very informative. This book barely rates three stars as compared to other Shakespeare; compared to the general run of books in the world, it would certainly rate somewhere between four and five.

The problem is that by Shakespeare's standards, it's sloppy. There are numerous places in which the language varies from folio to folio, and in various later editions, as the notes in this (the Dover Thrift Edition) make clear. And these are not just superficial alterations, but actual changes in the apparent meaning of the lines, or even attempts to insert meaning where it is almost impossible to find any in the original lines.

Other than that, the story itself is interesting, better than many of Shakespeare's more famous works, and if there are no immortal lines that leap out at the reader on a par with "My kingdom for a horse" or "To be or not to be", that says more about the quality of his other works than about any lack of quality here.

As with all of Shakespeare's plays, this is worth the read, although even more than with some of his others, it is imperative that the modern reader get an edition with good notes; otherwise, some of the sense is sure to be lost.