Here, as in All's Well That Ends Well, we have one beautiful character, that of Isabella, like a light shining in corruption. Here, too, the wronged Mariana, in order to win back the faithless Angelo, is forced to resort to the same device to which Helena had to stoop. But this play is darker and more savage than its predecessor. Angelo, as a governor, sentencing men to death for the very sin which he as a private man is trying to commit, is contemptible on a huger and more devilish scale than Bertram. Lucio, if not more base than Parolles, is at least more malignant. And Claudio, attempting to save his life by his sister's shame, is an incarnation of the healthy animal joy of life almost wholly divested of the ideals of manhood. In a way, the play ends happily; but it is about as cheerful as the red gleam of sunset which shoots athwart a retreating thunderstorm.
Date.—The play was first published in the Folio of 1623. It is generally believed, however, that it was written about 1603. In the first place, the verse tests and general character of the play seem to fit that date; secondly, there are two passages, I, i, 68-73 and II, iv, 27-30, which are usually interpreted as allusions to the attitude of James I toward the people after he came to the throne in 1603; and, thirdly, there are many turns of phrase which remind one of Hamlet and which seem to indicate that the two plays were written near together. Barksted's Myrrha (1607) contains a passage apparently borrowed from this comedy, which helps in determining the latest possible date of composition.
Sources.—Shakespeare borrowed his material from a writer named George Whetstone, who in 1578 printed a play, Promos and Cassandra, containing most of the story of Measure for Measure. In 1582 the same author published a prose version of the story in his Heptameron of Civil Discourses. Whetstone in turn borrowed his material, which came originally from the Hecatommithi of Giraldi Cinthio. Shakespeare ennobled the underlying thought as far as he could, and added the character of Mariana.
Julius Caesar.—The interest in Julius Caesar does not focus on any one person as completely as in the other great tragedies. Like the chronicle plays which had preceded it, it gives rather a grand panorama of history than the fate of any particular hero. This explains its title. It is not the story of Julius Caesar the man, but of that great political upheaval of which Caesar was cause and center. That upheaval begins with his attempt at despotism and the crown; it reaches its climax in his death, which disturbs the political equilibrium of the whole nation; and at last subsides with the decline and downfall of Caesar's enemies. Shakespeare has departed from history in drawing the character of the great conqueror, making it more weak, vain, and pompous than that of the real man. Yet even in the play "the mightiest Julius" is an impressive figure. Alive, he
"doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus";
and his influence, like an unseen force, shapes the fates of the living after he himself is dead.
In so far as the tragedy has any individual hero, that hero is Brutus rather than Caesar himself. Brutus is a man of noble character, but deficient in practical judgment and knowledge of men. With the best of motives he allows Cassius to hoodwink him and draw him into the conspiracy against Caesar. Through the same short-sighted generosity he allows his enemy Antony to address the crowd after Caesar's death, with the result that Antony rouses the people against him and drives him and his fellow conspirators out of Rome. Then when he and Cassius gather an army in Asia to fight with Antony, we find him too impractically scrupulous to raise money by the usual means; and for that reason short of cash and drawn into a quarrel with his brother general. His subsequent death at Philippi is the logical outcome of his own nature, too good for so evil an age, too short-sighted for so critical a position.
Most of the old Roman heroes inspire respect rather than love; and something of their stern impressiveness lingers in the atmosphere of this Roman play. Here and there it has very touching scenes, such as that between Brutus and his page (IV, iii); but in the main it is great, not through its power to elicit sympathetic tears, but through its dignity and grandeur. It is one of the stateliest of tragedies, lofty in language, majestic in movement, logical and cogent in thought. We can never mourn for Brutus and Portia as we do for Romeo and Juliet, or for Lear and Cordelia; but we feel that we have breathed in their company an air which is keen and bracing, and have caught a glimpse of
"The grandeur that was Rome."
Date.—We have no printed copy of Julius Caesar earlier than that of the First Folio. Since it was not mentioned by Meres in 1598 and was alluded to in 1601 in John Weever's Mirrour of Martyrs, it probably appeared between those two dates. Weever says in his dedication that his work "some two years ago was made fit for the print." This apparently means that he wrote the allusion to Julius Caesar in 1599 and that consequently the play had been produced by then. There is a possible reference to it in Ben Jonson's Every Man Out of His Humour, which came out in 1599. Metrical tests and the general character of the play agree with these conclusions. Hence we can put the date between 1599-1601, with a preference for the former year.