MMV "Mortality and Mercy in Vienna"

[Dave Monroe]

Pynchon takes the title of his next story from
Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, wherein Duke
Vincentio deputizes Angelo to rule in his absence, to
clean up Vienna, grown lawless and licentious. The
Duke grants Angelo life-and-death power of the state
when he says:

In our remove be thou at full ourself.
Mortality and mercy in Vienna
Live in thy tongue and heart. (1.1.43-45)

Angelo begins by pulling down the brothels and putting
into effect an old Draconian law by making
incontinence (inability to restrain appetites,
unchastity, according to the O.E.D.) a capital crime.
Pynchon begins his story by leading us form the text
to Angelo's role in Measure for Measure, which he
expects readers to carry enthymematically in suspended
state until he reveals his purpose for evoking this
particular bit of Shakespeare. It is the beginning of
his second story, and Pynchon is again alluding to
something (a hint, a clue) outside the text.

http://www.vheissu.org/art/art_eng_SL_hollander.htm#chap_7

http://www.vheissu.org/art/art_eng_SL_hollander.htm


	
		
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