| Through its comprehensive cast of nuns, friars, prostitutes, bawds, sexual offenders, and corrupt magistrates, William Shakespeare's problem comedy Measure for Measure (1604) exposes the law's predicaments as it attempts to redress moral depravity and regulate sexuality in both private and public spheres. The complex commingling of marriage law with premarital and extramarital intercourse, commercial sex, adultery, and intended rape informs this play, and Shakespeare shows the discrepancy between common law and canon law (made by ecclesiastical authority) regarding supervision of sexuality. My project elaborates on law and sexuality in Measure for Measure, exploring in particular how the dialectic of stable and unstable elements in both law and sexuality produces the play's problems, foregrounding the titular question of "measuring" in terms of the law's capacity to calibrate sexuality. |
