Shakespeare was writing in the early modern period and as such his topics are our topics. In Measure for Measure he looks at the power vested in men and sees how unregulated it is. The Duke seems to govern by whim and fancy and Angelo through hypocrisy and exploitation. The women, Mariana and Isabella, seem mired in the conventional beliefs of their period. The rhetoric of moralists abounds, yet is distorting the characters’ moral ideas. Bleakly, the play seems to offer very little way out of this corrupt power politics. Lucio laughs, but Claudio cries. It all ends ‘happily’, but is anything solved? Relationships are made, yet do they satisfy the departing audience? The means for anger and authority to erupt savagely still seem to remain.
Conrad is looking at the 19th century, a world both distant and familiar. What if the hero works for and admires the villain? Is this what it means to be a Western European in the era? Willing to be immoral even as you recognise and are revolted by the immorality? Again we meet unregulated anger and power, disdain for all forms of difference and collaboration with the wicked.
Both texts force us into uncomfortable company and confront us with brittle moralities intent on murder. Both leave us stranded with little or uncertain hope. Both are designed to disturb. Both create a tortured, opaque literary language. We are left to interpret and question.
Learning outcomes
- To understand the relation between literature and its period;
- To develop an understanding of working with different literary styles and or genres;
- To gain knowledge of interpreting literary ideas.
