Much Ado About Nothing Just A Comedy

Much Ado About Nothing: Just A Comedy. Essay, Research Paper

“This play we must call a comedy, tho’ some of the incidents and discourses are more in a tragic strain; and that of the accusation of Hero is too shocking for either tragedy or comedy” (Charles Gildon 1714)

How far do you accept this comment about the play’s events and language.

“Much Ado About Nothing” is a play categorised as a comedy, and written by the dramatist William Shakespeare. A comic play is usually accepted to be a light-hearted play with a happy conclusion. A play classed as a tragedy is serious and sad, usually ending with the death of the main character. A tragicomedy is a play consisting of both tragic and comic elements. Much Ado is of the comedy genre as it contains humorous scenes and ends happily, however the play also includes serious incidents, which contributes to a tragic element in the play.

The sixteenth century period and the influence of the Elizabethan era would have affected the way Shakespeare wrote his plays. The technological advance since the sixteenth century is considerable. We believe Shakespeare’s theatre relied on theatrical effects as minima, and that play’s relied entirely on the language.

In Elizabethan society marriages were arranged, property and power were the main reason that influenced discussions for marriage. Daughters were often seen as a strain on family finances, although useful for making political connections, and often judged on their potential for breeding healthy children. Claudio asks Don Pedro if Leonato “hath…any son” to answer the question of inheritance, which a male heir would be left, supporting the Elizabethan view on marriage.

In the Elizabethan period, it was “forbidden” for women to appear on stage and considered “immoral”, and so boys played the roles of females, Shakespeare explored the position of women through his plays; and in Much Ado we see a “strong” and “witty” female character such as Beatrice as a main character was an accepted occurrence in Shakespeare’s plays.

Prose predominates in comedy and where a conversational rather than an emotional or imaginative effect if desired, this strengthens the argument that Much Ado is a comedy. Shakespeare wrote the play mostly in prose form except for scenes of extreme emotion and feeling, “could she here deny…thou wouldst not quickly die” as when Hero’s unfaithfulness was enlightened at the church to Leonato. When a character has strong emotions of happiness or sadness, Shakespeare uses poetry to highlight the heightened feelings and often allows characters long and uninterrupted speeches of poetry to express themselves more clearly and with feeling.

Comic scenes lighten the play and contain some sexual innuendo and many witty remarks and exchanges between the characters, Leonato answering, “Her mother hath many times told me so” when the Prince presented Hero to Leonato. Some of the characters have a language device as Dogberry with his malapropisms “our sexton hath reformed Signior Leonato”, the awkward language of the watch, and Beatrice and Bene*censored* have their witty exchanges of conversation interwoven with insults and teasing.

The opening scene contains the comic imagery of animals when Bene*censored* says that Beatrice has the “tongue” of a “parrot” to which it is replied that Bene*censored* is himself a “beast”, the exchanges are witty and somewhat insulting towards each other. Beatrice also mocks Bene*censored* and his sexual appetite when asking, “How many hath he kill’d and eaten in these wars.”

The contrasts of vocabulary in the comic scenes to the darker scenes are great; the darker scenes are short and blunt without any joking or good-humour. The tragic scenes contain none of the good-humour or light-heartedness in the comic scenes, these scenes are lengthy with long speeches written in poetic form of characters especially in severe emotional turmoil. The public accusation of Hero is as shocking to the audience as it is too other characters in the play, so harsh a confrontation is unacceptable behaviour in modern society, although in Elizabethan times it may have been acceptable to publicize a woman’s dishonour. Hero cannot express herself in words at the accusations of her being unfaithful, and is so defeated with emotional turmoil that she faints, “demonstrating the theatrical image of grief”.

The song that Balthazar sings “men were deceivers ever” catches the spirit of the play as men will always be fickle in life and love, it is the woman’s position to accept it, and also Don Johns deceiving almost lead to a tragic climax in the play. The characters of Don Pedro, Bene*censored* and Claudio were at first appearing to be quite foolish, but with the tragic elements of the play seemed to develop and mature so that the comedy in the play is no longer relevant.

The scenes of comedy prominently feature Beatrice and Bene*censored*’s “skirmish of wit” in which their “merry war” is pursued. The uses of disguise in the play are funny as in the masked ball, where Bene*censored* disguises himself to Beatrice, who gives unexpected criticism of Bene*censored* being a “Princes jester” the laughing stock of all, from which Bene*censored* could not defend himself less he should be exposed. Other characters essential for comic value in the play are the malapropisms of Dogberry, and the language o