SOURCE: Rappaport, Gideon. “Measuring Measure for Measure.” Renascence 39, no. 4 (Summer 1987): 502-13.

In the following essay, Rappaport responds to critics who view Measure for Measure as lacking unity, contending that there is sufficient thematic coherence in the drama's resolution.

O place and greatness! millions of false eyes Are stuck upon thee. Volumes of report Run with these false, and most contrarious quest Upon thy doings; thousand escapes of wit Make thee the father of their idle dream, And rack thee in their fancies. 

(IV.i.59-64)

In her call for papers for the 1980 Shakespeare Association Convention's seminar on Measure for Measure, Barbara Hodgdon wrote the following sentence, which may stand as a representative postulate of problem-play criticism: “Because of its ambiguities, Measure for Measure resists cohesive treatment.” The assumption contained in this statement and the conclusion it comes to were seconded in some way by nearly all the participants...