Three Comedic Genres Seen in Measure for Measure

Measure for Measure is a Jacobean comedy that takes the form of an amalgamation of three traditional comedic genres: “the bed trick comedy”, “the absent duke/ruler play”, and “the city comedy”. In “the bed trick comedy,” women are often looked upon as pawns. They are easily exchanged for another in the bedroom as a means of trickery, revenge, or mere comedic value. An example of such a swap would be situation/scene in which a wealthy, nobleman would, upon sleeping with a woman, turn on the bedroom lights and discover that said woman (thought to be white) is black and of lower class. This swap is seen between Mariana and Isabella in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure.
In “the absent duke play,” the duke, or ruler, leaves town and chaos immediately ensues. This is indeed what occurs in Measure for Measure, however, Shakespeare experiments with and tweaks the genre’s ideology by keeping the Duke in town, in disguise. It is also fairly obvious that the reason the Duke steps away from his life and chooses to take a seat in the audience is because he senses that trouble is to come and that chaos has already consumed his empire. This means that his leaving is not what truly causes chaos, for chaos was already present. This makes the Duke a controversial character, is he a noble man attempting to solve the chaos and crisis within his sexually obsessed society or is he a mere coward, attempting to dump his responsibility and his power on his unassuming, power-hungry second-in-command?
The third and final comedic genre seen throughout Measure for Measure is “the city comedy,” made most famous by Ben Johnson, who almost always set his stories in busy, bustling, London. Measure for Measure takes place in the city of Vienna rather than London and Shakespeare tries, yet fails to “measure up” Vienna to London. Vienna, however, a somewhat backwards city where the brothels are the sole places of life and vitality, unlike London, is in a state of crisis and is driven by masochism and sex. These three comedic genres are intertwined and tweaked to form the somewhat twisted and tragic comedy of Measure for Measure.

Rachel-Ann Levy
Section 1A