SOURCE: "Lucio and the Balanced Structure of Measure for Measure" in English Studies, Vol. 74, No. 1, February, 1993, pp. 84-95.

In the essay that follows, Stroud argues that the comic plot initiated by Lucio is intended to balance the more serious, "quasi-tragic" plot initiated by Angelo.

The title of Shakespeare's problem play is an open invitation for readers to speculate about its polarities, especially about which of the symmetrical oppositions are crucial to its interpretation. Long ago Lever adequately summarized its 'contrasts and antimonies juxtaposed and resolved',¹ of which a memorable example is Stevenson's analysis of Angelo and Isabella as 'paired and balanced representatives of human nature'.²

No matter how obtrusive Lucio may have seemed to Lever, however, and to others who search for 'A unified ideological message' in the play,³ they generally dismiss him as a 'comic scapegoat figure'⁴ unworthy of further speculation except by those who depend on...