Long before there was any inkling that Shakespeare had ever written a ‘dark’ comedy, Measure for Measure had been judged morally shocking, a play horrible in its tragedy, disgusting in its comedy and scandalous in its conclusion, one that gave

Since the discovery of a working Shakespeare chronology this view has strengthened, for the play falls squarely in the 'Tragic Period' thereby revealed; it lies deep in what Dowden called 'The Depths'. The turbid sexual anguish, the manifold treacheries, the squalor and injustice of the play found in this fact their explanation.

Then came a tendency to account for Shakespeare's seven-year contemplation of Evil in terms of some disaster in his private life, some huge personal despair, of which the plays (it was thought) might be in some sense a record; and, after that, it seemed that the despairs of our own age chimed in so readily with those attributed to him that it was almost as if a full understanding of these plays was a privilege reserved for the sorrowful century in which we live.

The most eloquent expression of this view known to me is that of Dover Wilson; Measure for Measure he say