SOURCE: Barnaby, Andrew, and Joan Wry. “Authorized Versions: Measure for Measure and the Politics of Biblical Translation.” Renaissance Quarterly 51, no. 4 (winter 1998): 1225-54.

In the following essay, Barnaby and Wry trace various biblical allusions used in Measure for Measure, emphasizing that although it is primarily a political play, the work is also a cautionary tale about the danger of using religious rhetoric in a political context.

Despite the common practice of reading Shakespeare's Measure for Measure in relation to the cultural politics of the first year of the Stuart monarchy, politically-oriented criticism has largely neglected the play's connection to the politics of one of King James's most ambitious undertakings: the new biblical translation first announced in January of 1604 at the Hampton Court Conference. While maintaining that the play cannot be reduced to a simple allegory of James's effort to link his new political authority to the “authorizing” power of...