ABSTRACT
This chapter gives particular attention to sibling relationships, as a dimension of familial ties that has been neglected in the psychoanalytic literature, though less so in writing about child analysis and child psychotherapy, where the presence and significance of siblings could hardly be missed by clinicians. It examines two plays by Shakespeare, Measure for Measure and Twelfth Night, which offer contrasting pictures of relationships between sibs, both as reflections of a familial and social context, and as particular sources of value and meaning. The chapter suggests that Measure for Measure explores a world whose social bonds are unusually weak. It seems a “modern” situation, with many parallels to our own, but it is an unusual state of affairs to see represented on Shakespeare’s stage. Twelfth Night depicts relationships between siblings of a very different quality from those of Measure for Measure.
