Governmentality and Space in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure

• In Event: Writing Place: Spatial Construct of Self and Place in Early Modern Drama

Abstract

Foucault’s concept of governmentality illuminates struggles between proliferating forms of pastoral and political government in Measure for Measure. Government shapes the habitus of individuals and communities according to codes of conduct that are also keyed to specific spaces; in Measure, these spaces include the princely palace, the monastery, the convent and the prison. Challenged by a Reformation-era efflorescence of ascetic conduct, which threatens to undermine his fragile political government, Measure’s Duke traverses these governmental spaces, engaging in a series of tentative experiments in pastoral government. However, rather than securing a new secular order, the Duke’s ministrations fail to establish any stable government; unstable and excessive modes of governmentality persistently vex the spaces of the play. The multiplicity of governmental schemes in the political imaginary of the play do not necessarily coalesce into a coherent scheme of secular governmentality, a situation that reflects early seventeenth century political and religious turmoil.

Author

• Jennifer R. Rust, Saint Louis University