Much Ado About Nothing Essay

such(prenominal) Ado approximately Nothingthe title sounds, to a modernistic ear, offhand and self-effacing we might expect the cope with that follows such a beginning to be a tall(a) piece of fluff and not much more. However, the play and the title itself ar weightier than they initially seem. Shakespeare used twain early(a) such titlesTwelfth Night, or What You Will and As You give care Itboth of which send unexpected reverberations of meaning through with(predicate)out their respective plays, the former(prenominal) with its reference to the Epiphany and the topsy-turvy world of a saturnalian celebration, and the latter with its implications about how the characters (and the reference itself) see the world in general and the Fo recumb of Arden in particular. more Ado About Nothing is no different, but we do not pick up the deeper resonances as quickly as an Elizabethan would, precisely because of a shift in pronunciation. We get our first real glance of the pun in t he title when adopt Pedro says, Note notes, forsooth, and nothing (The recognise Signet Classic Shakespeare, ed. Sylvan Barnet, New York Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1972, 2.3.57). As A. R. Humphreys explains, That nothing, colloquially spoken, was close to or identical with noting is the basis of Shakespearean puns, especially in a context of musical noting. A similar pun, though non-musical, is thinkable here (Introduction, The Arden Shakespeare Much Ado About Nothing, London and New York Methuen, 1981, 4).The play is, in fact, driven by the noting of scenes or conversations and the characters reactions to these observations noting seems to be the thematic glue that binds the various plot elements unitedly. When he wrote the play in 1598, Shakespeare assembled the hired gun-Claudio plot attract from bits and pieces of Ariostos Orlando Furioso (Canto V) and Spensers The Faerie Queene (Book II), and added details about Claudio and Don Pedro from Bandellos La Prima Parte de la Novelle (Novella 22). For the characters of Beatrice and Benedick, Shakespeare drew not so much on a specific story or plot as on the tradition of wit combat and characters from his own earlier comedies these twain characters can be seen, in fact, as wittier and more mature versions of Kate and Petruchio from The Taming of the Shrew. Dogberry and Verges similarly have no clear literary source, but seem or else to be taken from Shakespeares England. (For a detailed discussion of Much Ados sources, see A. R. Humphreys introduction to The Arden Shakespeare Much Ado About Nothing, London and New York Methuen, 1981, 5-25.)Thesecharacters, different though they may be, mesh together (and frequently clash) through their observations, chance overhearings, and deliberate eavesdroppings. The first sign of this comes proto(prenominal) in Act I. When Claudio asks Benedick what he thinks of hacek, Benedick responds, I renowned her not, but I looked on her (1.1.158). It becomes increa singly clear that they see in Hero two entirely different people. To Claudio she is a modest fresh lady, a jewel, and the sweetest lady that ever I looked on (1.1.159, 175, 181-2). hardly to Benedick, shes too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise (1.1.165-70). This is, as rear end Wilders notes, a play much concerned with the slipway in which people perceive unrivalled another, with our tendency to see in other people whatever by character and experience we are predisposed to see (New Prefaces to Shakespeare, Oxford Basil Blackwell, 1988, 147). So we must consider that Claudio is describing what he sees through the hazy mists of romantic attraction, and that Benedick (whatever he may say) is analyzing her through the hide of a professed tyrant to their sex (1.1.162-3) neither of them may be ocular perception Hero as she really is.Claudio, however, has an unfortunate tendency to believe incisively what he sees, and his eyeight proves more powerful than his assent in Don Pedro and his love for Hero. When Don buttocks, in his first bit of mischief, suggests to Claudio that Don Pedro is lawsuit Hero for himself, Claudio (despite his knowledge of the wooing plan and his friendship with the prince) takes what he sees for truth. And he is not convinced otherwise until the Don Pedro actually hands Hero over to him. Benedick withal believes what his eyes show him The Prince hath got your Hero. But did you think the Prince would have served you thus? (2.1.189-90, 193-4). But Benedick, at least, may be excused by his ignorance of Pedros intent to woo in Claudios name. This excuse cannot be made for Claudio he seems more willing to consider what he sees rather than what he believes in his heart or knows in his mind to be true. It is this quality that enables Don John to convince Claudio that Hero is unchaste so when Claudio sees Margaret, impersonating Hero, in intimate conversation with Borachio, he disregard s what credence (if any) he had in her, abandons his earlier observation that she is a modest preteen lady (1.1.159), and determines to shame her at the marriage ceremony. In his relationships with Don Pedro and Hero, visual proof (in both cases provided by a thorough-goingvillain) takes precedence over old experience.Eyesight, however, is not the only deceiving sense hearing is also included in the plays treatment of noting. At the beginning of 2.1, we learn that one of Antonios handmaids happened to overhear Claudio and Don Pedro making plans for the winning of Hero, but the servant must not have heard the conversation in its aggregate because he runs to Antonio with the story that Don Pedro means to court Hero in earnest. Auditory observations can apparently be just as punic as visual ones. Borachio, perhaps a more adept spy, also overhears Claudios and Don Pedros conversation, but he comes away with a more accurate version of the plan (2.3.56-61). The next eavesdropping sc ene, carefully engineered by the love-gods (2.2.382) for the gulling of Beatrice and Benedick, is yet another demonstration that what we see and hear is not inevitably what is. Just as Don John and Borachio create an event to snitch Claudio, Don Pedro and his confederates act out a scene for Benedick, and Hero and Ursula do the same for Beatrice.The quarrel whatever couple believe what the love-gods say because on some level its true and because Beatrice and Benedick want to believe that to each one is in love with the other. In the same way that we see what we are predisposed to see (Wilders 147), we also hear (and believe) what we are predisposed to hear. The final (and perhaps most important) overhearing connects the comic subplot of the constabulary with the world of Don John and Don Pedro. Despite their lack of sophistication and their abuse of the English language, Dogberry, Verges and the rest of the Watch discover Don Johns plotting and manage to mien out the confusion created by the aristocrats. Much Ado is, as John Wilders says, a play about noting, about the various and conflicting ways in which we respond to and judge other people (147). It is about the flexibleness of realityour ability to manipulate what other people observe and our cursory tendency to let biases influence our perceptions. And finally, it is about the inadequacy of noting the world with eyes and ears only, and the importance of relying on ones experience with and consequent faith in other human beings. Much Ado is all this, and marvelous comedy too.