The Bohemian Phase
The Bohemian Phase of the war is obviously more relevant to the present research as it involves the historical figures implicitly mentioned in the play. This phase encompassed the years 1618 through 1621. Official cause of this conflict was the Defenestration act.
The religious situation in Bohemia was complex: the Habsburg rulers were staunch defenders of the Roman Church. The Bohemian population was divided among a Catholic minority (many of them associated with the Habsburg court) and various types of Protestants. The most radical leaders of the Protestant nobility and representatives of their overlord Matthias II, Holy Roman Emperor, leader of the Habsburg House of Austria, met on 22 May 1618. They determined to confront the regents on the following day. It was at that meeting that the regents (and a clerk in their employ) were flung from the window in the “Defenestration of Prague.”
Matthias, like Rudolph, had no son and the Royal Family chose as his successor Ferdinand, the head of the Styrian branch of the Habsburgs, who had restored Catholicism in Styria. In 1617 the dynasty persuaded the Bohemians to accept Ferdinand as their future king, and in 1618 they prevailed upon the Hungarians to elect him king. Before this (May, 1618) the Bohemian nobles had revolted anew under the leadership of Count von Thurn on account of the alleged infringement of the charter granted by Rudolph. The dynasty was not yet ready for war. When Matthias died (March, 1619) the Hungarians and the inhabitants of Moravia joined the revolt, and in June Thurn advanced on Vienna with an army to persuade also the Austrians to join. However, Ferdinand prevented the insurrection and Thurn withdrew. Ferdinand was now able to go to Frankfurt, where his election as Emperor (28 August) secured the imperial dignity for his family. Two days before this the Bohemians had elected the leader of the Protestants, Frederick of the Palatinate, as rival King of Bohemia.
The inhabitants of Lower Austria now joined the revolt. Bethlen Gabor, Prince of Transylvania (an administrative district of Hungary), made an alliance with its leaders, and in “composition” with them once more threatened Vienna at the close of 1619. Since this moment, however, discipline steadily declined in the Bohemian army, and the leaders disagreed. The expected aid was never received from the Protestant party, excepting that a few of the less important nobles of the empire joined the revolting forces. On the other hand, in October 1619, Ferdinand obtained the help of Maximilian of Bavaria, who had the largest army in the Empire, and of the Protestant Elector of Saxony. Spain and Poland also sent troops. Maximilian so greatly terrified the Protestant party, which since 1608 had formed the Union, that it was broken up. He then advanced into Bohemia supported by Austrian troops and decisively defeated the Bohemians in the battle of the White Mountain, near Prague. The Elector Frederick, called the "Winter King" on account of the brief duration of his rule, fled. Ferdinand took possession of his provinces and restored order there.
The News from the Eastern Europe
The war with Transylvania, however, was carried on with interruptions until 1626. As a gesture of defiance towards the Emperor’s title of King of Hungary, Bethlen was elected King in 1620. His troops made incursions against Austrian strongholds in Bohemia, and into Austria itself, and by mid-September 1621 they lay within sight of the walls of Vienna.
The circulation of news-sheets of 1621 in London announcing the troops’ progress had been obviously the real source for the Middleton’s adaptation. Anyhow, on 6 October Bethlen started the negotiation for a separate peace with the Emperor and by 13 December the Treaty of Nikolsbourg was signed. So, if the news sheet was issued on October 6, Middleton was writing at a time when the outcome was uncertain. King James and others in England were unquiet for the alliance between James’s son-in-law Frederick and Bethlen, as the prince was supported by the Turks, and they were generally anxious for peace.
Some other testimony for adaptation
The testimony that Measure had been creatively remade is reinforced by the references to piracy. The actual Vienna, unlike London, was not a maritimecity. Accordingly, the possibility of pirates was excluded. Meanwhile trade routs to England passed through the Low Countries, washed by the sea. The opening lines refer to pirates:
Lucio Thou concludes’t like the sanctimonious pirate,
That went to sea with the Ten Commandments, but
Scrap’d one out of the table
I.ii.7-9
Only in 1609 did pirates become a regular menace to English shipping. In 1620, Sir Robert Mansell was appointed General of the Fleet destined to chastise the Algerine pirates, who still continued their depredations on the shipping in the Channel1. Between 22 September and 21 October of 1621 Sir Robert Mansellwas at sea leading an expedition against pirates in the Mediterranean. In October 57 British merchant ships were captured by pirates. This ambiguity of messages proves that the author was trying to create a city that would refer a reader/spectator to both Vienna and London. The news from the war (associated with Vienna) and the allusion to piracy (associated with London) introduce the two cities simultaneously. One more evidence in favor of the text modification is found in the passage of Mistress Overdone who mentions the “poverty” in I.ii.78 which may refer to the economic depression of 1619-1624, the severest England had experienced by that time.
Mistress. Overdone Thus, what with the war, what with the sweat,
What with the gallows, and what with poverty, I am
Custom-shrunk.
I.ii. 75-77
Where then did Shakespeare set in?
Shakespeare, writing Measure, was thinking of Italy, not Germany. Although throughout the play the duke is not attributed a proper name, the personae list calls the Duke ”Vincentio”, a common Italian name Shakespeare used for an Italian character in his Taming of the Shrew. “Lucio” is also an Italian name, used in Romeo and Juliet, and of course Juliet too. “Claudio”, “Isabella”, “Angelo”, “Marianna” and “Bernardine” are also names given elsewhere to specifically Italian characters. The prisoner with the unique non Italian name Ragozine is a pirate. Although Escalus is not typically Italian, it is a Latin name. Middleton presumably left all other Italian names because changing them would have required profound correction of the play.
Furthermore, vineyards are mentioned three times. Like other Renaissance Englishmen, Shakespeare associated wine with Italy, not Austria. Italy was also notorious for lechery and prostitution. Prostitution and sexuality are the main vices associated with the city portrayed in Measure. On the contrary, according to the stereotype that was current at the time, the Germans and northern Europeans were less lecherous.
We know for sure that Shakespeare read Giambattista Giraldi Cinthio’s popular book Ecatommiti1and used Tale 85 for Measure. Some scholars are convinced he used some material from Tale 56 and was particularly influenced by the role in that story of a “Duke of Ferrara”. The book was written while Cinthio was living in Ferrara. In the sixteenth century, under the patronage of the Este family, the independent city of Ferrara rivaledand in many ways surpassed Florence as the centre of Italian literary culture. The Duke of Ferrara was a patron of both Tasso and Guarini, who together created a model of tragicomedy that began to influence English drama, including, in particular, Measure, at the very beginning of the seventeenth century. Obviously the city might be appreciated for such achievements in literature and art. Not only Shakespeare but Middleton himself set his Phoenix, performed at Court in February 1604, in Ferrara. This play includes a Duke of Ferrara as well. Marston’s character the Duke of Ferrara has much in common with Vincentio. Ferrara is mentioned as well in Shakespeare and John Fletcher All is True III.2. 324 (in the passage usually attributed to Shakespeare).
So, the evidence for Italian Ferrara is particularly strong. It grows even stronger in view of the fact that the word Ferrara is metrically similar to Vienna and that it could have been substituted easily without changing the verse.
Conclusions
There are reasons to suppose that Shakespeare set the play in Italian Ferrara and that Middleton changed the setting in order to establish the Thirty Years War as a backdrop. So, the first part of the present research makes an attempt to reject the adopted (in the First Folio) setting in the German city of Vienna, while the second part aims to ascertain the original setting. Some direct or indirect evidences for the eventual adaptation include:1. Shakespeare's 1603-04 audience would not have had any particular association with Vienna; indeed, Measure for Measure is the only English play written before 1660 that is set in Vienna. Vienna was known primarily as “the principall Bulwarke of all Christendome against the Turke,”yet Shakespeare makes no reference to Turks, Moors, or Ottomans in the play.2. The play contains several obvious signs of revision including:- systematic expurgation consistent with 1608 Act to Restrain Abuses by Players;- act divisions;- a stanza of a Fletcher’s song that was written between 1617 and 1620.3. An October 1621 English newsletter describing the King of Hungary's advance on Vienna provides a basis for Lucio’s remark about the Dukes coming “not to composition with the King of Hungary...”, and the first gentleman’s rejoinder “Heaven grant us its peace, but not the King of Hungaries”.4. The Italian names of the characters suggest that the play’s original setting was in Italy, and Shakespeare’s audience would have associated the city’s sexual licentiousness with Italy, not Germany.5. The use of Ferrara was a common setting for other plays of the same period.6. “Ferrara” has the same metrical structure as “Vienna”.Universita’ degli studi di roma “tor vergata” facolta’ di lettere e filosofia
Corso di Laurea Magistrale in
Lingue e Letterature Europee ed Americane
Progetto
Per il corso di Letteratura Inglese
William Shakespeare
MEASURE FOR MEASURE: ORIGINAL AND ACTUAL PLACE OF SETTING
Curatore: Prof.ssa Daniela Guardamagna Studente: Usova Anna, LLEA LS 1 a. a 2008/2009