Are Measure for Measure and Mathis der Maler both fictional?
Measure for Measure Measure for Measure is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604. Originally published in the "First Folio" of 1623, where it was listed as a comedy, the play's first recorded performance occurred in 1604. The play's main themes include justice, "mortality and mercy in Vienna," and the dichotomy between corruption and purity: "some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall." Mercy and virtue prevail, as the play does not end tragically, with virtues such as compassion and forgiveness being exercised at the end of the production. While the play focuses on justice overall, the final scene illustrates that Shakespeare intended for moral justice to temper strict civil justice: a number of the characters receive understanding and leniency, instead of the harsh punishment to which they, according to the law, could have been sentenced.
The Measure of the Rule The Measure of the Rule is a 1907 coming-of-age novel about a country teacher who migrates to the city to study engineering, but is forced by dint of circumstance to go to a teacher’s training college, where he meets his wife-to-be. Written by the one-time "Detroit Free Press" journalist Robert Barr (known in the "Press" as 'Luke Sharp') it is both an indictment of an age gone by in which discipline and religion slide towards perversion and voyeurism, and a reminiscence of an innocent time before the great conflicts of the twentieth century, a time in which respect, delicacy and modesty prevailed in the relationships between man and woman, student and teacher. A complex and forgotten masterpiece of observation, whimsy and melodrama, it is reminiscent both of Mark Twain and Booth Tarkington. The title comes from 2 Corinthians 10:13 "according to the measure of the rule which God hath distributed to us, a measure to reach even unto you" (King James Version)