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Public Justice And Private Mercy In Measure For Measure, Stacy Magedanz

Library Faculty Publications & Presentations

As the only one of Shakespeare’s plays to carry a biblical title, Measure for Measure draws on an explicitly Christian body of thought about law, mercy, justice, and the right exercise of authority. The pervasive influence of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7) over Measure for Measure’s action has led many critics to interpret the play as a straightforward Christian allegory where Mercy pleads before God in a grand Last Judgment.1 Another group, perhaps in reaction, has found in the play a subversion of the expected outcomes of justice, or even a radical subversion of all authority.2 During the …