https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6589-2466
![Sample our Language & Literature journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5941/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Language-Literature.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The paper argues that All’s Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure and Troilus and Cressida are neither “Problem Comedies” nor “Problem Plays”. They have been viewed in terms of a genre to which they do not quite belong, and the fact that they deal with problems has somehow been construed to mean that they are problems. These plays show continuities with the previous comedies but also mark a forward movement and a further development. Where romantic love is the basis of early comedy, “the urgency of sexuality” is now the major theme and complex issues of sexual desire and its fulfilment are explored. The focus is primarily on women and their vulnerability, women who are insecure, threatened, and discover they can use their sexuality, the very thing that makes them vulnerable, as a weapon, as leverage, to help them survive. These are plays about sexuality, compromise, and survival.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Dowden, Shakspere, 48, 51.
2 Boas, Shakspere and his Predecessors, 345.
3 Lawrence, Shakespeare’s Problem Plays, no pagination.
4 Hillman, William Shakespeare, 1.
5 Dowden, Shakespeare, 47, 52.
6 Wheeler, Shakespeare’s Development and the Problem Plays, 1.
7 Kaul, “Instability, Disruption, Dissonance”, 73.
8 Honigmann, Twelfth Night Or What You Will, 17.
9 Kaul, “‘Rule, Supremacy, Sway’”, 555–57.
10 Hillman, William Shakespeare, 129.
11 Ibid., 7.
12 Ibid., 7.
13 Waller, “From ‘the Unfortunate Comedy’ to ‘this Infinite Fascinating Play’”, 28.
14 Gleed, “Tying the (K)not”, 96.
15 Wilson, Shaw on Shakespeare, xii.
16 Ibid., 4.
17 Ibid., 25.
18 Ibid., 129, 254, 129.
19 Mikesell, “The Formative Power of Marriage”, 233–4, 233.
20 Hunter, All’s Well, xxxvii.
21 Brooke, “All’s Well That Ends Well”, 10, 11.
22 Waller, “From ‘the Unfortunate Comedy’”, 1.
23 Wilson, Shaw on Shakespeare, 250.
24 Bevington, Complete Plays, 296.
25 Latham, As You Like It, lxxii.
26 Waller, “From ‘the Unfortunate Comedy’”, 35.
27 Leech, “The Theme of Ambition”, 264.
28 Westlund, Shakespeare’s Reparative Comedies, 130.
29 McCandless, “All’s Well That Ends Well”, 236.
30 Ibid., 237.
31 Erasmus on Women, 47.
32 Alfar, “‘Let’s Consult Together’”, 40.
33 Waller, “From ‘the Unfortunate Comedy’”, 27.
34 Wheeler, Shakespeare’s Development and the Problem Plays, 12.
35 Hillman, William Shakespeare, 67.
36 Ibid.
37 Hunter, All’s Well That Ends Well, liv.
38 Smallwood, 41–2.
39 Wilson, Shaw on Shakespeare, 254.
40 Bevington, The Complete Works of Shakespeare, 370.
41 Maus, 2023.
42 Ibid., 2022.
43 Ibid., 2023.
44 Ibid., 2178.
45 Lever, Measure for Measure, lxvii.
46 Maus, 2023.
47 Ellis-Fermor, Jacobean Drama, 263.
48 Quiller-Couch, Measure for Measure, xxx.
49 Tennyson, “Mariana”, ll. 14–15.
50 Wheeler, Shakespeare’s Development and the Problem Plays, 13.
51 Westlund, Shakespeare’s Reparative Comedies, 175.
52 Ibid., 171.
53 Ibid., 154.
54 Wheeler, Shakespeare’s Development and the Problem Plays, 7.
55 Hillman, William Shakespeare, 92–3.
56 Ibid., 131.
57 Muir, “Troilus and Cressida”, 96.
58 Dowden, Critical Study, vii.
59 Campbell, Shakespeare’s Satire, 120.
60 Ellis-Fermor, Shakespeare’s Drama, 117.
61 Ellis-Fermor, Frontiers of Drama, 71.
62 Kott, Shakespeare Our Contemporary, 61.
63 .Oates, “Essence and Existence in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida”, 167.
64 All references to Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde are to the Norton Critical Edition, ed. Stephen Barney. Line numbers follow the quoted passage in the text.
65 Barney, xiii.
66 Pandarus is the manipulator of Troilus and Cressida in the love plot, Ulysses of Achilles and Ajax in the Greek camp.
67 Adamson, Troilus and Cressida, 95.
68 Kott, Shakespeare Our Contemporary, 65–66. In Chaucer, the lovers have three years together.
69 Adamson, Troilus and Cressida, 100.
70 Kott, Shakespeare Our Contemporary, 66.
71 Adamson, Troilus and Cressida, 100.
72 Daniel Juan Gil makes the interesting comment that “the movement of Cressida, at the very midpoint of the play, from the Trojan camp to the Greek camp suggests an impulse to restore the imbalance in the relationship between the two groups of men caused by the abduction of Helen by giving the Greeks a Trojan woman who is said at every turn to be interchangeable with Helen”, 79.
73 Engle, Shakespeare and Pragmatism, 162.
74 Gil points out that “the Cressida-Troilus-Diomedes story replays the Helen-Menelaus-Paris story in reverse”, 89. Thersites notes the parallel: in 2.3., echoing the Prologue, he states, “All the argument [of the war] is a whore and a cuckold . . . war and lechery confound all” (71), and in 5.4. his comment is, “Lechery, lechery, still wars and lechery” (198–9).
75 Ellis-Fermor, Shakespeare’s Drama, 119.
76 Hillman, William Shakespeare, 8.
77 Schlegel, 419.
78 Fletcher, The Faithful Shepherdess, 3.1.212-13.
79 Turner, The Wife of Bath, 31.
80 Westlund, Shakespeare’s Reparative Comedies, 126.
81 Wheeler, Shakespeare’s Development and the Problem Plays, 13.
82 Miles, The Problem of “Measure for Measure”, 283.
Successful rulers in the Histories compromise, which is why they are successful. Protagonists in the Tragedies do not, and they do not survive. Protagonists in the Romances do not compromise either. But these are transformational plays, transformative plays; in them the world is reshaped by the incorporation of values from a different sphere, the pastoral, and made better and more perfect. Marina in Pericles, alone and unprotected like Helena, Isabella, Cressida, fights her way out of the brothel and transforms both the brothel keepers and those who frequent it.
83 Yoder, “‘Sons and Daughters of the Game’”, 122.