ABSTRACT
Does Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, a sixteenth-century play portraying the political events reestablishing political order in the Dukedom of Vienna, have anything significant to tell the twenty-first century about the nature of effective political leadership? Shakespeare introduces Vienna’s Duke Vincentio in act 1 as a reluctant governor who loves the people (I.1.67) but who does “not relish well their loud applause” (I.1.70). In fact, he confesses to suspicion of any human being who seeks out the public realm, who chooses “to stage” himself to the people and who revels in their admiration. Such a man cannot be “of safe discretion,” according to the Duke’s judgment. In contrast to the politically ambitious, who “haunt assemblies” with the intention of ostentatiously displaying their “witless bravery,” the Duke reminds Friar Thomas, in a private conversation early in the play, that he has always preferred a quiet life, “the life remov’d” (I.3.8). The Duke is clearly contemptuous and mistrustful of the personal desire for power
and glory of a human being who likes politics and public approbation too much. Yet, the Duke also acknowledges to the Friar that his contempt for politics per se has led him to neglect the pressing necessities of political life, which has allowed the political order in Vienna to fray (I.3.18-55). At the beginning of Measure for Measure, the Duke takes the advice of Niccolo Machiavelli when he advises princes to become well-acquainted with the nature of the people in order to govern them effectively.1 The “fantastical” Duke may have secretive means available to him that a contemporary democratic leader cannot employ, but he contends with the same challenges posed by extreme ideological parties on the political spectrum that a prudential twenty-first-century political leader must also tackle.
