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Much Ado About Nothing ~1598 By William Shakespeare

Based on The Riverside Shakespeare: Second Edition Introduction Based on The Riverside Shakespeare: Second Edition

Characters to know: Claudio (lord of Florence) Hero (daughter of Leonato)

Characters to know: Benedick (lord of Padua) Beatrice (niece to Leonato)

Characters to know: Don John (bastard brother of Don Pedro) Don Pedro (Prince of Arragon) Don John (bastard brother of Don Pedro)

Characters to know: Leonato (governor of Messina) Dogberry (constable)

Characters to know: Borachio (follower of Don John) Conrad (follower of Don John)

CHEMISTRY!!! Much Ado About Nothing plays loose with conventional roles. It is difficult to identify the main characters in the story, but most point at Benedick and Beatrice. Even though Benedick and Beatrice are popularly seen as the main characters, they – or any other character – cannot hold the play up on their own.

CHEMISTRY!!! Though Benedick and Beatrice are seen as the main characters, they cannot sustain the play by themselves.

CHEMISTRY!!! But, without the vital undercurrent of the Beatrice and Benedick story, the relationship between Hero and Claudio seems flat and thin.

CHEMISTRY!!! And, without the villainy of Don John, Beatrice cannot fully reveal either her own nature or the depth of her lover’s commitment, by forcing him to choose abruptly between his old world of male friendships and the new world of love.

Origin Most of Shakespeare’s works have been influenced either one work or a collection of them. Much Ado About Nothing was influenced by the following: Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (1591) Spenser’s The Fairie Queene (1590) Bodello’s 22nd novella (1554) Whetstone’s The Rock of Regard (1576) Pasqualigo’s Il Fidele (1579)

Origin: the common theme Most of these versions deal, to some extent, with a conflict between love and friendship in which the more fiery and irrational force of love overthrows not only a former bond of trust but the integrity of a personality. Though some say that Shakespeare transferred the rivalry between love and friendship to a position slightly outside the norm to Don John, others say that it is Beatrice.

Setting Messina, Italy -it is a town temporarily lifted out of its normal habits and atmosphere by the fact that it happens to be filled with glamorous strangers resting there for a time after a triumphant military campaign, and by the sense of gaiety and elation attendant upon a newly concluded peace.

Why Messina? Don Pedro, Claudio, and Benedick are all friends, as well as, comrades in arms.

Why Messina? Don Pedro has stayed with Leonato before.

Why Messina? Claudio has an uncle in town, and he has had his eye on Hero before he went off to war.

Why Messina? Benedick and Beatrice appear to have been insulting one another joyously for years.

Beatrice and Benedick But, it is important to remember that several years earlier, in The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare had already experimented with the idea of an unconventional couple who arrive at love and understanding by way of insult and aggression. This is eluded to in Beatrice’s line, “Indeed, my lord, he lent [his heart] me awhile, and I gave him use for it, a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice, therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it.”(II.i.278-82) There is no specific source for the Beatrice and Benedick underplot…

Shakespearean Comedies Virtually all of Shakespeare’s comedies involve some kind of confrontation with death before the characters are allowed to win through the happiness of the final scene.

Any Questions?