William Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing
Roger Ebert described Shakespeare's play, Much Ado about Nothing, as a comedy, in which the most important thing is the style: "A play like Much Ado about Nothing is all about style. I doubt if Shakespeare's audiences at the Globe took it any more seriously than we do. It is farce and mime and wisecracks, and dastardly melodrama which all come right in the end, of course, because this is a Comedy."Indeed, Much Ado about Nothing seems to be made exclusively of the pranks and games that the characters play on each other. As such, the play lacks any consistency in action or meaning, to the extent that it can not be taken seriously by the audience. In this sense, Shakespeare's text is a pure comedy, with no tangible content. Nevertheless, the play does contain a few elements that can be considered tragic or at least serious enough to make its status as a pure comedy debatable. Inasmuch as the play is filled with witticisms and comic farces that all end well it can be maintained that it is written entirely as a comedy. However, the mere fact that everything turns out as good as possible, does not cover up the serious subjects in the text, which are emphasized at the end of the play.Thus, the interpretation of the play can begin wit
I would not marry her, though she/ were endowed with all that Adam bad left him before/ he transgressed: she would have made Hercules have/ turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make/ the fire too. Once Don John begins his wicked deceiving, the play no longer has the safety of a comedy. 16-17) The line however clearly describes the general behavior of the characters in the play, that "dare do" all kinds of things that provoke fate, without knowing what they do. He is thus behind the most serious and dangerous trick played, which truly aims at destroying the happiness of the main couple Hero and Claudio. Their relationship is an example of the battle between the sexes, a common subject for the Elizabethan comedies. / Maintain a mourning ostentation/ And on your family's old monument/ Hang mournful epitaphs, and do all rites/That appertain unto a burial. He simply returns Hero to her father, at the same time emphasizing what he sees as the deceit- her innocence is not what it seems according to him: "There, Leonato, take her back again. Also, the end of the play is very significant. / Behold how like a maid she blushes here!/ O, what authority and show of truth/ Can cunning sin cover itself withal!/ Comes not that blood as modest evidence/ To witness simple virtue? Would you not swear,/ All you that see her, that she were a maid,/ By these exterior shows? But she is none. The dissembling, deceiving and misprisions in the play seem to form an endless chain. Friar Francis misinforms everyone by telling them Hero is dead, and finally, Don John's plot is discovered.
Common topics in this essay:
Hero Claudio's,
Berenice Benedick,
Indeed Ado,
Don Pedro,
Don John,
Ado Shakespeare's,
Don John's,
Romeo Juliet's,
Hero Claudio/,
Roger Ebert,
don pedro,
pure comedy,
don john,
characters play,
indeed ado,
berenice benedick,
don pedro claudio,
friar francis,
tragic undertones,
play indeed,
hero dead,
|
Acceptance Essays
