Introduction

In Measure for Measure Barnardine, Bohemian murderer and drunkard held in a Viennese prison, has to be killed because his head is needed to replace that of another person whose life is instead to be saved. But something odd and unexpected occurs: Barnardine refuses to be killed, and responds with affront to the call of his gaolers and the Duke Vincentio, the sovereign authority of Vienna. And Barnardine will not be killed. In his stead, the pirate Ragozine will lose his head. In short, at the time when modern sovereignty as we know it was taking shape in the works of authors such as Bodin and Hobbes, but also through historical events such as the Peace of Westphalia, an old thread can be traced back in history and literature: the story of power as evil, and resistance to power by the "outcasts" of society.