Much Ado About Nothing: Stuff to Chew On

To kick off our series on Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, we are (as always) starting with an overview of basic facts about the play and an introduction to the major themes and motifs of the play. 

Elyse Sharp (ES): Hi, Kourtney. 

Kourtney Smith (KS): Hi, Elyse. How are you doing today? 

ES: Oh, I'm doing pretty great. How are you?

KS: I'm also doing really well. Or, you said great. I'm also doing really great. 

ES: Oh, awesome.

KS: Yeah.

ES: I'm excited today to start digging into Much Ado About Nothing with our Stuff to Chew On. Again, for anyone who might be listening for the first time, in our Stuff to Chew On episodes, we do some light analysis of the plays, looking at things that if you were to come across this play in an educational setting, or attended maybe, you know, some sort of talk about it, these are things that likely you're going to hear about when people talk about this play. So some background information, major themes, motifs, and then we will go into deeper dives in future episodes.

KS: Exactly. 

ES: So to kick things off, let's start off with a brief history about the productions of this play. Much Ado About Nothing likely debuted in the autumn or winter of 1598 through 1599. Will Kemp played Dogberry and Richard Cowley played Verges, and you can hear more about them in our episodes on Clowns. 

KS: And these are two of the only actors we know credited with roles in the original production. Is that correct?

ES: Correct. And we know this because of, one, the type of humor that was. If you listen to our Clowns episode, Kemp and Cowley had a very specific humor style that we can trace through the plays that they appeared in and were written for them. 

KS: Yeah. And in 1600, the stationers Andrew Wise and William Aspley published the play in quarto. According to this text, Much Ado About Nothing was, quote, “sundry times publicly acted” before 1600. This was the only edition prior to the first folio in 1623. And the quarto, this quarto edition names some minor roles such as Kemp and Cowley, who are those two comedic actors in the troupe. And that's how we are able to. 

ES: That's another reason we definitely know that they played these characters.

KS: Exactly.

ES: So while this play was definitely first published in 1600 and definitely performed many times before then, the earliest recorded performances we have are actually from the winter of 1612 through 1613, where there were two performances at court that winter during the festivities that preceded the wedding of Princess Elizabeth, the daughter of King James, and Frederick V of the Palatinate on February 14th. And the wedding happened on February 14th, 1613.

KS: So that's context about the play during Shakespeare's time and during the early modern era. I think it is also important to note that like many, many Shakespeare plays, the way that we view these characters is not necessarily just rooted in the text and the traditions from the early modern period. Many of our ideas of these characters come from the historical baggage from the 400 plus years of performances that precede 2024. And during the 19th century, the emphasis while playing Beatrice shifted from Beatrice's mind to her heart. So while there were some actors who continued to play Beatrice's roughness, one notable actor, Ellen Terry, is said to have embodied Beatrice as sunny, boisterous and merry as opposed to shrewish. And Terry's Beatrice's words were sharp as steel, but were said to be sheathed in velvet to convey the idea that she loved Benedick. And in spite of the 20th century's advent of a popular political feminism, sentimentalizing Beatrice still held strong until the mid-century. So when we talk about Beatrice and Beatrice in performance history, her character ranges from women of feeling to women of wit. And it's also important to note that Benedick also has this swing along a pendulum in performance of gruff and urbane or soldier and courtier. So there are popular choices in performance how to portray these characters and that those have changed throughout time. 

ES: Moving into looking at the structure of this play, this play is kind of unique in some ways. It is technically a comedy because it ends with weddings and everything tied up in a bow, but it has a mixture of tones. There's a lot of comedy, a lot of jokes, but it also generates emotional movements towards sadness. And the central plot, Hero and Claudio, which is a lot of the actual plot points of the play, is a tragedy for the most part. This play also has a rare devotion to prose structure. Nearly 70% of the lines are written in prose instead of in blank verse. 

KS: So now let's go ahead and move on to source material. As with nearly all Shakespeare plays, his plots, characters, all of that comes from previous material. He draws from a lot of sources and Much Ado is a part of that as well. And so what we're going to talk about is primarily the Hero and Claudio main plot, the central plot, and the sources that Shakespeare drew from. So this tale of the unjustly slandered woman was a popular one in Renaissance literature. It appeared in many genres, tragedy, farce, romance, and homily. And it was the vehicle for various meditations on subjects in popular discourse, such as ideas about evidence, love, the power of the senses, among others. And sexual slander was a real concern of 16th century courts. And so scholars see that this play really feeds on those concerns for the audience. So this specific slandered woman story, the Hero story, goes back to the 5th century Greek romance of Chariton, Chaereas and Kallirrhoe. These are Greek, and I'm so sorry if I mispronounced them, but this is a Greek romance story that focuses on the slandered woman. And there were at least 17 versions of this story in existence by the time of Much Ado.The most prominent instance was the 5th canto of Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. Orlando Furioso itself is probably based on the 15th century Spanish story Tirant Io Blanco by Juan Martorell.

ES: So the big sources for this story within Much Ado are Ariosto and Bandello. Ariosto's version of this tale includes a story about lovers and an impersonation at a balcony. This tale produced many spinoffs.It was first translated into English by Peter Beverley in 1566. Then George Whetstone's Rock of Regard rendered it again in 1576. A verse translation by Sir John Harrington. Oh, hey, buddy. 

KS: Yeah, we love Harrington.

ES: In 1591. In 1591 was more loyal to Ariosto's work. And then Edmund Spenser also used it to illustrate the dangers of intemperate action in The Faerie Queen in 1590. Ariosto's version of the tale focuses a lot on social custom and chiefly concerns romance's attention to social distinction, as does Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.

KS: The farcical and less didactic nature of the play comes from the Italian story Il Fedele  by Luigi Pasaqualigo in 1576. In Il Fidel, there are concerns of a married woman who loves another man who then becomes a cuckold. The story involves trickery and a wife's escape of fate. The Italian story is racier than the English translation, and it differs from Much Ado because Shakespeare's heroine is chaste. But nonetheless, this is a very popular version of the slandered woman tale that we see in Much Ado. 

ES: A nearer relative of Shakespeare's play is the prose novella 22 of Matteo Bandello’s La Prima Parte de le Novelle from 1554. Like Bandello's story, Shakespeare's is set in Messina, and there is a wealthy knight and a king of Aragon. Bandello's story involves marriage proposals and questions of honor, like Shakespeare's. And, like Much Ado, the father in Bandello's story is also named Leonato.

KS: And Shakespeare's changes to his source material mostly concerns matters of specific characters. So the plot of the slandered woman and the deception remain very similar, but the characters do change in many substantial ways. So one of them is the expansion of the psychological scope of the characters, as well as the expansion of details of status. So, for example, the Don Pedro character is expanded for Much Ado. So Don Pedro goes from a mere mention in Bandello's version to a type of deus ex machina in Shakespeare's.

ES: Moving on from the source material for the plot and into the source material for the dialogue and debate forms, Shakespeare's text includes formal patterns of dialogue and debate conventions of his time, as well as contexts such as conduct books, theological and medical discourses, and the popular humor of cuckold jokes and sexual slander.

KS: So that's the source material and inspiration for much of the central plot, Hero and Claudio. The Beatrice and Benedick subplot, as well as the watch plot, tend to be identified as original inventions of Shakespeare's that were grafted on as comic relief to the oft-told story of the slandered woman and her deceived betrothed. And I think it is important to note that even though Hero and Claudio are the central plot in terms of the actions of the plot, oftentimes in production, Beatrice and Benedick do upstage that couple.

ES: And that's it for where Shakespeare got his ideas. Now we're going to move into discussing the themes and motifs of the play. So to start off, one of the major themes is the ideal of social grace. Claudio, Benedick, and Don Pedro, as we mentioned earlier, a lot of how this play is written is based on how people were supposed to act in Shakespeare's time. And these three characters, again, Claudio, Benedick, and Don Pedro, all speak like Renaissance courtiers were supposed to speak. And much of Claudio's arc and behavior is dictated by his adherence to courtly social norms. He's incredibly polite when he believes Don Pedro is wooing Hero for himself, Don Pedro, and says essentially like, well, he can have her then because Claudio is below Don Pedro in status. Claudio's adherence to social propriety also leads him to abandon Hero at the wedding because Don John leads him to believe that she is unchaste. And in Shakespeare's time, marriage to an unchaste woman would be socially unacceptable.

KS: The next theme is deception as a means to an end. The plot of Much Ado is based upon deliberate deceptions, some malevolent and others benign. The duping of Claudio and Don Pedro results in Hero's disgrace, while the ruse of her death prepares the way for her redemption and reconciliation with Claudio. Now that's the more malevolent one. In a more lighthearted vein, Beatrice and Benedick are fooled into thinking that each other loves the other, and they actually do fall in love, or it can be argued that the two of them do fall in love as a result of this trick. So deception is not inherently evil in Much Ado, but something that can be used as a means to good or bad ends.

ES: The next theme is the importance of honor. Again, the Claudio-Hero plot really hinges on the importance of their honor and maintaining honor, and his rejection of her is based on his belief that she has done something dishonorable. In Shakespeare's time, a woman's honor was based on her virginity and chaste behavior, and Claudio's as a courtier, his honor is based on his obedience to his senior officer in Don Pedro. This loss of honor for Hero specifically also damages the entire family, which is why Leonato initially reacts the way he does and tries to throw out Hero entirely when he believes for a moment that she is unchaste. And we also see Beatrice urge Benedick to avenge Hero's honor by killing Claudio, pretty famously. 

KS: Mmhmm. Yes.

ES: Because as a woman, Hero cannot seize back her honor, but Benedick can fight for her honor. 

KS: And then a couple of notable themes that we'll probably go into more detail about when we really dive into specifically gender in this play. One of them is sexual stereotypes. So this idea that women are supposed to be chaste, silent, and obedient, and also duality. The two central couples, Hero and Claudio, and Beatrice and Benedick, are in many ways opposites of each other. And so while Beatrice is saying what's on her mind, the men in the play are hoping that Hero will adhere to the sexual stereotype and be chaste, silent, and follow her father's orders. And then Hero and Claudio have a proper courtship, if you will, and then Beatrice and Benedick’s is quite unconventional based on the deception that luckily turns into love. But there's a duality to these two couples. 

ES: Moving into motifs, we see the motif of public shaming throughout the play. So we've been talking a lot about the deception surrounding Hero, and although Hero is ultimately vindicated, her public shaming is really pretty terrible, and it causes a lot of damage to her honor and her family. But shame, to look outside of that incident, shame is also what Don John is trying to cause to Claudio. Don John wants to disrupt the social order, in a sense, and make Claudio no longer Don Pedro's favorite for funsies. And he's trying to do that through the shame and the associated shame that Claudio would have by marrying or being engaged to a loose woman. Don John has also received a lot of social shame in his life because hurt people hurt people. He has received a lot of public shame because he is the product of an illegitimate sexual coupling as a bastard. And at the end, his punishment is through public shaming and a threat of torture for deceiving his half-brother, and he will never gain a good spot in courtly society because of his behavior.

KS: Now let's go on to the motif of noting. So in Shakespeare's time, the Nothing of the title would have been pronounced noting. Thus, the play's title could read Much Ado About Noting. Much of the action centers on interest in others and critique of others, written messages, spying, and eavesdropping. People are noting what's going on by others. And in order for a plot hinged on instances of deceit to work, the characters, like I said, must note one another constantly. Now taken literally, the text implies that a great fuss, much ado, is made of something insignificant, nothing, such as the unfounded claims of hero's infidelity and that Benedick and Beatrice are in love with each other. And nothing is also a double entendre. An o-thing or n-o-thing or no-thing was Elizabethan slang for vagina derived from women having nothing between their legs, so it could also be Much Ado About Women.

ES: Yep. 

KS: Yeah, so fun two ways to read the title, and yeah. 

ES: Another central motif is the motif of entertainment. We get some songs performed by Balthazar about the deceitfulness of men, and then the music and dancing that occurs at the end of the play. These characters spend a lot of time engaging in elaborate spectacles and entertainment, so we have a masked ball, and then also, going back to the noting, they are enjoying it, it is entertaining to be involved in these plots. Everybody who is involved in a plot is doing it to entertain themselves.

KS: Yeah, Don Pedro calls it a sport multiple times. 

ES: Yes. The play's title encapsulates the sentiment of this effervescent and light court entertainment. This play is going to be entertaining, comic, and absorbing, and everything is going to end up okay. It is not, will they, won't they? It is, they will, and how are we going to watch them get there? Beatrice also compares courtship and marriage to delightful court dances. “Wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace.”

KS: So our last motif, we're going to combine a bunch of very similar motifs into one category, and that is the motif of counterfeiting, deceit, infidelity, masks, and mistaken identity. So in the idea of counterfeiting, it's the sense of presenting a false face to the world, and that appears frequently throughout the play. A particularly rich and complex example of counterfeiting occurs as Leonato, Claudio, and Don Pedro pretend that Beatrice is head over heels in love with Benedick, so that the eavesdropping Benedick will overhear it and believe it. Beatrice gets lured into a similar trap. Another more serious reference to counterfeiting occurs at the wedding ceremony, as Claudio rhetorically paints a picture of Hero as a perfect counterfeit of innocence, unchaste, and impure beneath a seemingly unblemished surface. He says, “she's but the sign and semblance of her honor. Behold how, like a maid, she blushes here. Oh, what authority and show of truth can cunning sin cover itself with all?”. And Hero's supposed counterfeiting is of a grave nature, as it threatens her womanly reputation, and then ultimately the reputation for her whole family. In regards to deceit, there is deceit all over the place.

ES: As we talked about, deception is a means to an end. So deception is really both a theme and a motif in this piece.

KS: Yeah, yeah. 

ES: We've talked a lot about the different forms of deception and deceit that happen in this play. And yeah, in terms of the multiple plots and the wooing through lying.

KS: Yes. 

ES: Parent-trapping your friends. 

KS: Yes. And it even goes down to Don Pedro saying, I'm going to woo Hero for you. And then Claudio thinks that he has been deceived. He thinks, oh, I showed my friend the girl I like, and my friend has stolen the girl from me.

ES: Yeah. Or moving into the, and this is going to overlap too, that's why they all overlap in this category. You know, having Margaret appear at the window. And part of Don John's plot relies on deceiving Claudio by making him believe that it's Hero at the window instead of Margaret, who is having sexual relations with another.

KS: Yes, yeah, yeah. And then this infidelity theme with Claudio and the balcony and that deception is also present throughout the play prior to this. So the question of the infidelity of women starts early on when Leonato, Don Pedro and Benedick are talking about whether or not Hero is actually legitimately Leonato's daughter. 

ES: Daughter. 

KS: And so there is this question of like, are women faithful? And then going back to Balthazar's song, the song is about men being unfaithful. So infidelity is just painted throughout. We also have, with the counterfeiting and the deceit, masks. 

ES: Masks and mistaken identity.

KS: Masks and mistaken identity together. Yeah. And one entire scene, in one scene at the party, the characters are all wearing masks and people are questioning who is who and they're accusing certain people of being someone that they're not. They think that one character is someone that they're not.

ES: Or they're trying to pretend to what success we don't know. 

KS: Yeah.

ES: They are somebody else, as Benedick and Beatrice have a conversation where maybe they both know that they're talking to the other, but through the mask there's plausible deniability. 

KS: Yeah. 

ES: And then also at the end, when Claudio comes to marry whoever he believes he's going to marry as recompense for shaming Hero and causing what he believes to be her death, all of the maidens are veiled and then it is revealed that Hero is the one who he will be married to. But there's another mask in there hiding her face. Yeah. 

KS: And then the last button on this is fabricated accounts of love. So, Don Pedro's love for Hero, Hero's love for Borachio, Benedick for Beatrice and vice versa. A lot of who's saying what and why and what is true and what is false. 

ES: Yeah. And that's all the stuff that there is to chew on. And I'm really excited to dive in more deeply on some of these topics and other topics that aren't themes and motifs.

KS: Absolutely.

ES: So, here we go. Much Ado About Nothing. 

KS: Much Ado About... I have no button.

ES: Much Ado About Noting. Thank you for listening.

Quote of the Episode

KS: From Titus Andronicus, Act 4, Scene 2. Said by Aaron, “Fie, treacherous hue, that will betray with blushing the close enacts and counsels of thy heart.”

Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp.

Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander.

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Works referenced:

Shakespeare, William. Much Ado About Nothing: Revised Edition. Edited by Claire McEachern, 2nd ed., Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016.

SparkNotes Editors. “Much Ado About Nothing.” SparkNotes.com, SparkNotes LLC, 2005, https://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/muchado/section1/.