‘[S]tamps that are forbid’

Chapter 4, "'[S]tamps that are forbid': Measure for Measure, counterfeit coinage, and the politics of value", investigates the obsession of Shakespeare's early Jacobean play with counterfeiting-numismatic, theatrical and political-at a time when the King's Men and their plays, like new Jacobean coins, bore the stamp of king and patron James I. Measure, it argues, uses the language and imagery of coinage to negotiate its status as a debased comedy counterfeited by the King's Men, placing the counterfeiting Duke at the centre of its economy of theatrical and political value. Addressing the revisionary stamp of Thomas Middleton on the play in the early 1620s, the chapter examines the canonical value of the play during its afterlife, showing that Measure's generic and authorial 'problems' are often couched in a numismatic language of stamping, corruption and purity which influences how we value Shakespeare.