This
paper looks at the drastically different interpretations by critics of "Measure for Measure". The comments of H.C. Goddard,
Harold Bloom and Martin Lings are contrasted, who variously take the play as: a moral tale on the nature of authority and governance, a spectacle of extreme nihilism, and a mystical quest for spiritual redemption. The
paper asserts that each of these writers has a distinctly valuable approach to Shakespeare's text, but none has captured the mysterious whole.