Much Ado About Nothing

A Comedy By William Shakespeare

Written around 1600.

First printed as a play in 1623.

Background Information Set in the town of Messina in Sicily, Italy. Tragicomedy or Comedy: happy ending with the

potential for ending in tragedy

The five acts follow two pairs of lovers and a strange man. Claudio & Hero: The conventional young lovers who

have a crisis that threatens their relationship, but reunite at the end.

Benedick & Beatrice: two battling, witty lovers who begin the play hating each other, and end up in a different kind of loving relationship.

Dogberry: The bumbling policeman who, with his associates (the volunteer night watchmen), figure into the action when they catch the bad guys.

Romeo & Juliet

Much Ado About Nothing

Rome

Comedy…

Impossible to define Definite kinds, low to high Reformation of a (ridiculous)

character Holiday spirit Ritual element (marriage) Comic diction

Comedy… Tragedy is about the break-up of civilization. Comedy is about the establishment of social

harmony. Both are dramatic terms of art: thus “tragedy” is

not the same as “horrible” and comedies can be bittersweet as well as funny.

Drama is not life, but ritual: thus Shakespeare ends comedies in weddings as a sign, not a proof, of social stability: 3 weddings in MSND; 2 in Much Ado

(What happens after, who knows? Cf. the marital problems of Oberon and Titania: but you need hope.)

What does the title mean? Nothing/Noting: homophones in

Shakespeare’s day. Definition

A great fuss (much ado) is made of something insignificant (nothing)

• Unfounded claims of Hero’s infidelity

Got everything to do with spying • Interest in other people’s thoughts and

lives, notes, letters, eavesdropping…)

Noting: singing (sight-reading)

“Nothing/Nothing” as the Ridiculous? This is a play about “nothing,” scrutinizing for

little signs of truth, relying on fallible eyes, as when Beatrice and Benedick ignore the other’s words and look for signs that the other loves them.

While B and B are examining minutia, Claudio is deceived by the overly obvious impersonation of Hero by Margaret. He is not at all interested in the signs of love but in marrying an heiress with the sought after qualities of beauty and meekness (neither one said to belong to Beatrice, whose name, rather, suggests beatitude, or cosmic happiness, while Benedick means “blessed”)

The language…

Innuendo and bawdy language is part of the humor in this play.

Puns – words that look alike but have different meanings “A man to a man: stuffed with all honorable

virtues … he is no less than a stuffed man.”

Most of the language of the play is in prose.

Prose rather than verse Verse spoken by the young lovers: Claudio

and Hero Verse expresses their lofty feelings of love

Verse spoken by those in authority: Leonato (governor) and Friar Francis (priest). Leonato and Friar – expresses their formality of

their roles –governor and priest Prose reflects the anti-romantic attitudes of the

principal characters, their refusal to play the game of love Benedick – Ardent, poetic lover Beatrice – coy, flirtatious woman

Sigh no more…

Sung just before men deceive Benedick Balthasar says the song is about how men

deceive women by wooing falsely. But Don Pedro wants the music (Note, notes)

and “nothing” of that meaning but rather, here, a set-up for the “nothing = noting” by Benedick of their feigned conversation about how Beatrice loves him.

So the play harmonizes or softens male deception by turning it from a slander to a merry plot, re-enacting origins of comedy as a form.

Comedy – Word play Malapropism: misusing words

ridiculously; confusion of words that are similar in sound.Ex: oderous (smelly) for odious

(hateful)Dogberry: “You are thought here to be

the most senseless and fit man for the constable of the watch…(sensible).

Irony: great comic irony is that with all of these bright people, the ones who uncover the villain’s plot are the dopey cops.

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh nor more;

Men were deceivers ever;

One foot in sea and one on shore,

To one thing constant never;

Then sigh not so,

But let them go,

And be you blithe and bonny;

Converting all your sounds of woe

Into. Hey nonny, nonny.

Sing no more ditties, sing no mo,

Or dumps so dull and heavy;

The fraud of men was ever so,

Since summer first was leavy.

Then sigh not so,

But let them go,

And be you blithe and bonny,

Converting all your sounds of woe

Into. Hey, nonny, nonny.

Sigh N

o More (H

ey Nonny, N

onny) B

y William

Shakespeare

Themes Road to marriage is often lined with pitfalls

and impediments People often wear masks to hide their true

feelings All is not what it seems Love is NOT blind Love IS blind A woman’s chastity is a treasure no man

should possess except in marriage RUMOR IS BAD, mmmkay?