“‘I will open my lips in vain’ (3.1.192): l’échec rhétorique dans Measure for Measure”

Unlike other plays like King John, Richard III or most of the comedies, in which language is often presented as a powerful instrument of persuasion, Measure for Measure is a play that stages a number of ’’rhetorical failures’’. Though Isabella is said to master the art of speaking, she does not succeed in convincing Angelo that he must spare her brother’s life. It is striking that neither Claudio nor the Duke himself should prove more successful in their own attempts at persuasion. Even Barnardine’s stubborn refusal to die may be adduced as further evidence that speeches often meet with perlocutionary failure in the play. In the end it is not Isabella’s rhetorical skills but the Duke’s ’’dark deeds’’ that make it possible for the play to escape the tragic ending it was moving towards. Such a shift from Isabella’s rhetorical powerlessness to the Duke’s silent scheming is yet another indication of the play’s dual nature. That the voluble Isabella finally chooses to remain silent, letting the Duke dictate what she must say and do, is one of the most puzzling aspects of this intriguing comedy which suggests that one often speaks ’’in vain’’ whilst simultaneously celebrating, by its very existence, the dramatic and poetical efficacy of language