Editing Measure for Measure (section)

==Date, text and authorship==
[[File:First-page-first-folio-measure-for-measure.jpg|upright=1.35|thumb|The first page of Shakespeare's ''Measure for Measure'', printed in the [[First Folio]] of 1623]]
''Measure for Measure'' is believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604. The play was first published in 1623 in the [[First Folio]].

In their book ''Shakespeare Reshaped, 1606–1623'', [[Gary Taylor (English literature scholar)|Gary Taylor]] and [[John Jowett]] argue that part of the text of ''Measure'' that survives is not in its original form, but rather the product of a revision by [[Thomas Middleton]] after Shakespeare's death. They present stylistic evidence that patches of writing are by Middleton, and argue that Middleton changed the setting to [[Vienna]] from the original Italy.<ref>Gary Taylor and John Jowett, ''Shakespeare Reshaped, 1606–1623'' (Oxford University Press, 1993).
* See also: "Shakespeare's Mediterranean ''Measure for Measure''", in ''Shakespeare and the Mediterranean: The Selected Proceedings of the International Shakespeare Association World Congress, Valencia, 2001'', ed. Tom Clayton, Susan Brock, and Vicente Forés (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2004), 243–269.</ref> Braunmuller and Watson say their suggestion should be seen as "an intriguing hypothesis rather than a fully proven attribution".<ref name="Shakespeare 2020 372">{{cite book|last=Shakespeare|first=William|title=Measure for Measure |date=2020|publisher=The Arden Shakespeare|location=London|isbn=978-1-904-27143-7|page=372|edition=Third series|editor1=A. R. Braunmuller|editor2=Robert N. Watson}}</ref> [[David Bevington]] suggests an alternate theory: that the text can be stylistically credited to the professional scrivener [[Ralph Crane]], who is usually credited for some of the better and unchanged texts in the Folio, including ''[[The Tempest]]''.<ref name="Shakespeare 1997 A-7">{{cite book|last=Shakespeare|first=William|title=The Complete Works |date=1997 |publisher=Addison-Wesley Longman |location=New York |isbn=978-0-673-99996-2 |page=A-7 |edition=Updated, fourth |editor=David Bevington}}</ref>

It is generally accepted that a garbled sentence during the Duke's opening speech (lines 8–9 in most editions) represents a place where a line has been lost, possibly due to a printer's error. Because the folio is the only source, the line cannot be recovered.<ref name="Shakespeare 1997 A-7"/>