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Measure for Measure Quizzes, Trivia and Puzzles
Measure for Measure Quizzes, Trivia

Measure for Measure Trivia

Measure for Measure Trivia Quizzes

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When Vincentio, Duke of Vienna, pretends to leave the city with Antonio in charge, he actually hangs around disguised as a friar and discovers that the austere judge is not as upright as he had seemed.
2 quizzes and 30 trivia questions.
1.
  20 Question Measure for Measure Quiz   top quiz  
Multiple Choice
 20 Qns
One of the Bard's most unique works is this fascinating look at human frailty. It is classified as a comedy, though things frequently threaten to turn tragic.
Average, 20 Qns, jouen58, Nov 02 19
Average
jouen58
Nov 02 19
1334 plays
2.
  Measure for Measure    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
I noticed that there haven't been many quizzes for this Shakespeare play which I believe is one of his best. Enjoy.
Easier, 10 Qns, slaya, Jan 18 18
Easier
slaya
561 plays
trivia question Quick Question
The play begins with the Duke, Vincentio, leaving his deputy in charge of the city in his absence. Where does the Duke say he is going?

From Quiz "Measure for Measure"





Measure for Measure Trivia Questions
1. What is the name of the Duke who leaves the town for a while?

From Quiz Measure for Measure

Answer: Vincentio

In the play he is never referred to as Vincentio, but the character list at the beginning cites him as "Duke Vincentio".

2. The title of the play comes from a quotation from what source?

From Quiz Measure for Measure

Answer: The Gospels

"With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." (Matthew VII.2; there are similar quotes in Mark and Luke). Meaning those who show mercy shall receive mercy.

3. What does the Duke disguise himself as?

From Quiz Measure for Measure

Answer: Friar

He disguises himself as a friar so that he can watch the events in his town unfold before him, and see if his deputy is taking care of Vienna well.

4. In what city does the play take place?

From Quiz Measure for Measure

Answer: Vienna

Unusual; Shakespeare usually seems to prefer Italian or English settings for his plays.

5. Isabella is to marry whom, in the end?

From Quiz Measure for Measure

Answer: Duke

It has been debated for a long time by critics whether she actually wanted to marry him or not, as she seemed so set on becoming a nun during the play.

6. This play boasts some unusual character names, such as Mistress Overdone, a clown with the unlikely name of Pompey, and a constable named after this body part.

From Quiz Measure for Measure

Answer: Elbow

He is described as "a simple constable", rather like Dogberry of "Much Ado About Nothing."

7. Who is Juliet engaged to?

From Quiz Measure for Measure

Answer: Claudio

Juliet is pregnant with Claudio's child, which is why Claudio is in jail.

8. The play begins with the Duke, Vincentio, leaving his deputy in charge of the city in his absence. Where does the Duke say he is going?

From Quiz Measure for Measure

Answer: Poland

"...he {Angelo) supposes me travell'd to Poland; for so I have strew'd it in the common ear and so is it receiv'd."

9. Lucio commits what crime?

From Quiz Measure for Measure

Answer: slander

He is the only character that ends up dying, (maybe - there is some controversy over this). This is why "Measure for Measure" is thought of as one of Shakespeare's problem plays, because it combines tragedy and comedy.

10. In reality, the duke intends to remain in town incognito in order to observe how Angelo handles the job. Why?

From Quiz Measure for Measure

Answer: Angelo's moral standards have never been tested by reality.

The duke respects Angelo's fastidious and well-honed moral code, but knows that Angelo's principles have never been tested by human passion or the temptations that come with temporal power. He fears that Angelo, left to his own devices, will adopt a Draconian stance towards the city's laws. And he is right!

11. Who does Mariana love?

From Quiz Measure for Measure

Answer: Angelo

She loved him even though he left her when she had no dowry!

12. What disguise does Duke Vincentio adopt?

From Quiz Measure for Measure

Answer: A friar

As he tells his friend, Friar Thomas "My holy sir, none better knows than you how I have always lov'd the life removed"

13. One of Angelo's first acts is to sentence a young man named Claudio to death. What was Claudio's crime?

From Quiz Measure for Measure

Answer: Lechery

Claudio has slept with Juliet, to whom he is married by mutual agreement. Such marriages, before proper witnesses, were recognized in Shakespeare's England as valid. However they could not be consummated without a religious ceremony. The legal punishment for this is death- a law which heretofore was never enforced.

14. Where is this play set?

From Quiz Measure for Measure

Answer: Vienna

"Mortality and mercy in Vienna/Live in thy tongue and heart." Act 1, Scene 1, lines 44-45.

15. Claudio's sister Isabella is about to enter a convent belonging to which religious order?

From Quiz Measure for Measure

Answer: St. Clare

The order of St. Clare was one of the most severe of all female religious orders; however, when we first meet Isabella she is complaining about the insufficient strictness of the order!

16. Angelo asks Isabella to do what for him if he frees Claudio?

From Quiz Measure for Measure

Answer: sleep with him

She is shocked and appalled, and totally disagrees.

17. When Isabella goes to Angelo to plead for her brother's life what, to Angelo's great surprise, happens?

From Quiz Measure for Measure

Answer: He falls in love (or at least in lust) with her.

It was inevitable that when these two uptight characters met, something like this would happen to one of them.

18. At their second interview, Isabella is horrified when, in exchange for her brother's life, Angelo asks her to do this.

From Quiz Measure for Measure

Answer: Sleep with him.

"Redeem thy brother by yielding up thy body to my will."

19. A desperate Isabella turns for advice to her confessor, Friar Lodowick (the disguised Duke). He introduces her to Mariana, Angelo's repudiated fiancee. What does Mariana offer to do for Isabella?

From Quiz Measure for Measure

Answer: Take Isabella's place in her tryst with Angelo.

Isabella agrees to Angelo's demand, on the condition that their tryst will take place at night in complete darkness. Mariana will thus take Isabella's place in Angelo's bed.

20. Angelo had renounced his betrothal to Marianna, citing some question that he had heard about her virtue. What does the Duke believe to have been the real reason Angelo renounced Marianna?

From Quiz Measure for Measure

Answer: She had lost her dowry.

Poor Mariana's brother perished at sea shortly before her marriage was to have taken place. In the shipwreck, the chest with her dowry was also lost. Angelo, not wanting to marry a dowerless bride, cited some statements that he had heard made in jest about her virtue and renounced his engagement; thus she lost a brother, her dowry, and her husband all at once.

21. Mariana, still hopelessly in love with the man so who heartlessly rejected her, is one of the most poigant characters in Shakespeare. What nineteenth-century English poet was moved to write a poem about her?

From Quiz Measure for Measure

Answer: Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Tennyson's poem, subtitled "Mariana in the Moated Grange", memorably depicts her state of desolation after Angelo's abandonment ("She cried 'I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead'"). The poem begins with the line "With blackest moss the flower pots were thickly crusted, one and all" which, you may remember, is the line Henry Higgins has poor Eliza Doolittle try to recite with a mouthful of marbles in "My Fair Lady".

22. In this final scene, Vincentio, whilst disguised as Friar Lodowick, is roundly abused by Lucio, who is much chagrined when he discovers his true identity. How does Vincentio punish Lucio?

From Quiz Measure for Measure

Answer: Requires him to marry a whore.

Vicentio at first threatens to have Lucio whipped, then hanged. In the end, he forgives Lucio's slanders, but orders him to marry any "punk" (whore) who could be found whom Lucio had gotten with child. Lucio complains "marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death, whipping, and hanging." Vicentio replies "Slandering a prince deserves it."

23. At the play's conclusion, Vincentio, who has fallen in love with Isabella, asks her to marry him (she has not yet taken her vows). How does she respond?

From Quiz Measure for Measure

Answer: She does not reply.

The play ends without Isabella having given a response, however in most productions it seems clear that she accepts Vincentio's proposal.

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