ABSTRACT
Shakespeare's editors have thus catalogued 'obscurities' in the text of Measure for Measure deriving from these three stages of its transmission: its original composition (and possible later revision) by Shakespeare; its theatrical presentation by the King's Men from I604 to I622, and its preparation for and inclusion in the printing of the First Folio. One layer of obscurities appears to arise from its composition and includes the inconsistencies in the themes, content, characters and structure of the play. The text contains the types of Shakespearean markers that suggest it derives from his foul papers (other texts considered to be printed directly or indirectly from foul papers sharing the same characteristics include Quarto I of Love's Labour's Lost and Folio julius Caesar). In particular, we see here Shakespeare's typical use of generic speech-prefixes for characters, even though they have character names (for example, Pompey is termed 'Clowne' in the speech-prefixes but is called by name in the dialogue). The 'false starts' include ghost or near-ghost characters, that is, characters Shakespeare included early in a stage direction or dialogue but for whom he provides little or no dialogue such as Varrius and the Justice Quliet who remains silent in Act I Scene 3 does not, contrary to some arguments, appear to be a ghost character, but serves as a visible, pregnant symbol of the results of sexual intercourse that Angelo intends to ban). Other characters are confused: for example, Shakespeare presents a Friar Peter in Acts 4 and 5 who may or may not be the Friar Thomas who appears in Act I. Minor inconsistencies appear in the play's time scheme: for example, the length of time cited for the Duke's failure to enforce the anti-fornication laws appears first as I9 years and later as I4 years, and the Duke seems confused throughout Act 4 as to how long it will take him to tie together all the parts of his plan to bring Angelo to justice. Some speeches in the play, particularly of the
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Nor should Ralph Crane's contributions to the final state of the text be seen as destructive or deficient. Although his transcript of Measure for Measure no longer exists, copies of his other transcripts, including Thomas Middleton's plays The Witch and A Game at Chess, demonstrate the ways in which he altered a text grammatically but not dramatically. As apparent in Measure for Measure, he hyphenated compound words, routinely used apostrophes, colons and parentheses, regularised speech-prefixes and act-scene divisions, made elisions, and repeated unusual spellings; in other words, Crane made significant grammatical corrections, but he did not alter dialogue, theme, character or structure, except possibly in editing out profanity. The text has been purged of oaths (especially 'God', probably as a result of the 1606 Act against profanity on the stage), at first suggesting that Crane's copy displayed some I6o6 or later theatrical emendations to the text. However, Crane himself may have expurgated his transcript, as the three other Folio texts for which he prepared printers' copy (The Tempest, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and The Merry Wives of Windsor) also lack profanity. The only addition in Measure for Measure for which he may be held responsible is the final cast list (which contains the only mention of the Duke's name as 'Vincentia'), which resembles others he prepared for Folio plays. As T.H. Howard-Hill has stated, 'the evidence of Crane's share in the preparation of copy for MM is ample enough'.
