『자에는 자로』의 미해결의 결말

Abstract

Structurally Measure for Measure can be divided into two parts. The first half of the play (from its beginning to the middle of Act III) deals with the opposition of forces such as liberty vs. restraint, life vs. death, and justice vs. mercy. The second half explores ways toward their resolution. The last scene of the public judgement is polemical among the critics owing to Shakespeare's management, through the Duke, of the play's conclusion. The resolution that the Duke imposes upon the comedy looks artificial or perfunctory. The very marriages that he proposes coercively for the union of comic society does not clarify the conflicted inner world of the characters. They remain silent in the end. The silence is a form of resistance rather than of acceptance. A superficial dramatic resolution in Measure for Measure is due to the intensity of conflicts that precede it. The tense antagonisms between liberty and restraint, life and death, justice and mercy cannot be resolved in such a way that one absorbs the other. One has meaning in the existence of the other. Liberty based on restraint, life on death, mercy on justice could make human world more valuable and meaningful. Measure for Measure is the last of Shakespeare's comedies. Shakespeare puts emphasis on agon as much as on komos. It's a Shakespeare's experiment on comedy, an attempt to put tragic themes into comic form. It might be a prerequisite stage for him to prepare for the next tragic period beginning with Othello.