THEMES & MOTIFS in Much Ado About Nothing

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The Ideal of Social Grace

The characters’ dense, colorful manner of speaking represents the ideal that Renaissance courtiers strove for in their social interactions. The play’s language is heavily laden with metaphor and ornamented by rhetoric. Benedick, Claudio, and Don Pedro all produce the kind of witty banter that courtiers used to attract attention and approval in noble households. Courtiers were expected to speak in highly contrived language but to make their clever performances seem effortless. Benedick and his companions try to display their polished social graces both in their behavior and in their speech.
The play pokes fun at the fanciful language of love that courtiers used. When Claudio falls in love, he tries to be the perfect courtier by using intricate language. As Benedick notes: “His words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes” (II.iii.18–19). Although the young gallants in the play seem casual in their displays of wit, they constantly struggle to maintain their social positions. Benedick and Claudio must constantly strive to remain in Don Pedro’s favor. When Claudio silently agrees to let Don Pedro take his place to woo Hero, it is quite possible that he does so not because he is too shy to woo the woman himself, but because he must accede to Don Pedro’s authority in order to stay in Don Pedro’s good favor. When Claudio believes that Don Pedro has deceived him and wooed Hero not for Claudio but for himself, he cannot drop his polite civility, even though he is full of despair. Beatrice jokes that Claudio is “civil as an orange,” punning on the Seville orange, a bitter fruit (II.i.256). Claudio remains polite and nearly silent even though he is upset, telling Benedick of Don Pedro and Hero: “I wish him joy of her” (II.i.170). Clearly, Claudio chooses his obedience to Don Pedro over his love for Hero.
Claudio displays social grace, but his strict adherence to social propriety eventually leads him into a trap. He abandons Hero at the wedding because Don John leads him to believe that she is unchaste (marriage to an unchaste woman would be socially unacceptable). But Don John’s plan to unseat Claudio does not succeed, of course, as Claudio remains Don Pedro’s favorite, and it is Hero who has to suffer until her good reputation is restored.

Deception as a Means to an End

The plot of Much Ado About Nothing 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. In a more lighthearted vein, Beatrice and Benedick are fooled into thinking that each loves the other, and they actually do fall in love as a result. Much Ado About Nothing shows that deceit is not inherently evil, but something that can be used as a means to good or bad ends.
In the play, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between good and bad deception. When Claudio announces his desire to woo Hero, Don Pedro takes it upon himself to woo her for Claudio. Then, at the instigation of Don John, Claudio begins to mistrust Don Pedro, thinking he has been deceived. Just as the play’s audience comes to believe, temporarily, in the illusions of the theater, so the play’s characters become caught up in the illusions that they help to create for one another. Benedick and Beatrice flirt caustically at the masked ball, each possibly aware of the other’s presence yet pretending not to know the person hiding behind the mask. Likewise, when Claudio has shamed and rejected Hero, Leonato and his household “publish” that Hero has died in order to punish Claudio for his mistake. When Claudio returns, penitent, to accept the hand of Leonato’s “niece” (actually Hero), a group of masked women enters and Claudio must wed blindly. The masking of Hero and the other women reveals that the social institution of marriage has little to do with love. When Claudio flounders and asks, “Which is the lady I must seize upon?” he is ready and willing to commit the rest of his life to one of a group of unknowns (V.iv.53). His willingness stems not only from his guilt about slandering an innocent woman but also from the fact that he may care more about rising in Leonato’s favor than in marrying for love. In the end, deceit is neither purely positive nor purely negative: it is a means to an end, a way to create an illusion that helps one succeed socially.

The Importance of Honor

The aborted wedding ceremony, in which Claudio rejects Hero, accusing her of infidelity and violated chastity and publicly shaming her in front of her father, is the climax of the play. In Shakespeare’s time, a woman’s honor was based upon her virginity and chaste behavior. For a woman to lose her honor by having sexual relations before marriage meant that she would lose all social standing, a disaster from which she could never recover. Moreover, this loss of honor would poison the woman’s whole family. Thus, when Leonato rashly believes Claudio’s shaming of Hero at the wedding ceremony, he tries to obliterate her entirely: “Hence from her, let her die” (IV.i.153). Furthermore, he speaks of her loss of honor as an indelible stain from which he cannot distance himself, no matter how hard he tries: “O she is fallen / Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea / Hath drops too few to wash her clean again” (IV.i.138–140). For women in that era, the loss of honor was a form of annihilation.
For men, on the other hand, honor depended on male friendship alliances and was more military in nature. Unlike a woman, a man could defend his honor, and that of his family, by fighting in a battle or a duel. Beatrice urges Benedick to avenge Hero’s honor by dueling to the death with Claudio. As a woman, Hero cannot seize back her honor, but Benedick can do it for her via physical combat.

MOTIFS

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

Public Shaming

Even though Hero is ultimately vindicated, her public shaming at the wedding ceremony is too terrible to be ignored. In a sense, this kind of humiliation incurs more damage to her honor and her family name than would an act of unchaste behavior—an transgression she never commits. The language that both Claudio and Leonato use to shame Hero is extremely strong. To Claudio she is a “rotten orange” (IV.i.30), and to Leonato a rotting carcass that cannot be preserved: “the wide sea / Hath . . . / . . . salt too little which may season give / To her foul tainted flesh!” (IV.i.139–142).
Shame is also what Don John hopes will cause Claudio to lose his place as Don Pedro’s favorite: once Claudio is discovered to be engaged to a loose woman, Don John believes that Don Pedro will reject Claudio as he rejected Don John long ago. Shame is a form of social punishment closely connected to loss of honor. A product of an illegitimate sexual coupling himself, Don John has grown up constantly reminded of his own social shame, and he will do anything to right the balance. Ironically, in the end Don John is shamed and threatened with torture to punish him for deceiving the company. Clearly, he will never gain a good place in courtly society.

Noting

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.” Indeed, many of the players participate in the actions of observing, listening, and writing, or noting. In order for a plot hinged on instances of deceit to work, the characters must note one another constantly. When the women manipulate Beatrice into believing that Benedick adores her, they conceal themselves in the orchard so that Beatrice can better note their conversation. Since they know that Beatrice loves to eavesdrop, they are sure that their plot will succeed: “look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs / Close by the ground to hear our conference,” notes Hero (III.i.24–25). Each line the women speak is a carefully placed note for Beatrice to take up and ponder; the same is true of the scheme to convince Benedick of Beatrice’s passion.
Don John’s plot to undo Claudio also hinges on noting: in order for Claudio to believe that Hero is unchaste and unfaithful, he must be brought to her window to witness, or note, Margaret (whom he takes to be Hero) bidding farewell to Borachio in the semidarkness. Dogberry, Verges, and the rest of the comical night watch discover and arrest Don John because, although ill-equipped to express themselves linguistically, they overhear talk of the Margaret--Borachio staging. Despite their verbal deficiencies, they manage to capture Don John and bring him to Leonato, after having had the sexton (a church official) “note” the occurrences of the evening in writing. In the end, noting, in the sense of writing, unites Beatrice and Benedick for good: Hero and Claudio reveal love sonnets written by Beatrice and Benedick, textual evidence that notes and proves their love for one another.

Entertainment

From the witty yet plaintive song that Balthasar sings about the deceitfulness of men to the masked ball and the music and dancing at the end of the play, the characters of Much Ado About Nothing spend much of their time engaging in elaborate spectacles and entertainments. The play’s title encapsulates the sentiment of effervescent and light court entertainment: the two hours’ traffic onstage will be entertaining, comic, and absorbing. The characters who merrily spar and fall in love in the beginning will, of course, end up together in the conclusion. Beatrice compares courtship and marriage to delightful court dances: “wooing, wedding and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinquepace” (II.i.60–61). By including a masquerade as court entertainment in the middle, as well as two songs and a dance at the end, the play presents itself as sheer entertainment, conscious of its own theatricality.

Counterfeiting

The idea of counterfeiting, in the sense of presenting a false face to the world, 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. Luring Benedick into this trap, Leonato ironically dismisses the idea that perhaps Beatrice counterfeits her desire for Benedick, as he and the others counterfeit this love themselves: “O God! Counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it” (II.iii.98–99).
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:

She’s but the sign and semblance of her honour.
Behold how like a maid she blushes here!
O, what authority and show of truth
Can cunning sin cover itself withal!
           (IV.i.31–34)

Hero’s supposed counterfeiting is of a grave nature, as it threatens her womanly reputation. It is not her emotions that are being misconstrued, as with Beatrice, but rather her character and integrity.

CHARACTER LIST for Much Ado About Nothing

Beatrice -  Leonato’s niece and Hero’s cousin. Beatrice is “a pleasant-spirited lady” with a very sharp tongue. She is generous and loving, but, like Benedick, continually mocks other people with elaborately tooled jokes and puns. She wages a war of wits against Benedick and often wins the battles. At the outset of the play, she appears content never to marry.

Benedick -  An aristocratic soldier who has recently been fighting under Don Pedro, and a friend of Don Pedro and Claudio. Benedick is very witty, always making jokes and puns. He carries on a “merry war” of wits with Beatrice, but at the beginning of the play he swears he will never fall in love or marry.

Claudio -  A young soldier who has won great acclaim fighting under Don Pedro during the recent wars. Claudio falls in love with Hero upon his return to Messina. His unfortunately suspicious nature makes him quick to believe evil rumors and hasty to despair and take revenge.

Hero -  The beautiful young daughter of Leonato and the cousin of Beatrice. Hero is lovely, gentle, and kind. She falls in love with Claudio when he falls for her, but when Don John slanders her and Claudio rashly takes revenge, she suffers terribly.

Don Pedro -  An important nobleman from Aragon, sometimes referred to as “Prince.” Don Pedro is a longtime friend of Leonato, Hero’s father, and is also close to the soldiers who have been fighting under him—the younger Benedick and the very young Claudio. Don Pedro is generous, courteous, intelligent, and loving to his friends, but he is also quick to believe evil of others and hasty to take revenge. He is the most politically and socially powerful character in the play.

Leonato -  A respected, well-to-do, elderly noble at whose home, in Messina, Italy, the action is set. Leonato is the father of Hero and the uncle of Beatrice. As governor of Messina, he is second in social power only to Don Pedro.

Don John -  The illegitimate brother of Don Pedro; sometimes called “the Bastard.” Don John is melancholy and sullen by nature, and he creates a dark scheme to ruin the happiness of Hero and Claudio. He is the villain of the play; his evil actions are motivated by his envy of his brother’s social authority.

Margaret -  Hero’s serving woman, who unwittingly helps Borachio and Don John deceive Claudio into thinking that Hero is unfaithful. Unlike Ursula, Hero’s other lady-in-waiting, Margaret is lower class. Though she is honest, she does have some dealings with the villainous world of Don John: her lover is the mistrustful and easily bribed Borachio. Also unlike Ursula, Margaret loves to break decorum, especially with bawdy jokes and teases.

Borachio -  An associate of Don John. Borachio is the lover of Margaret, Hero’s serving woman. He conspires with Don John to trick Claudio and Don Pedro into thinking that Hero is unfaithful to Claudio. His name means “drunkard” in Italian, which might serve as a subtle direction to the actor playing him.

Conrad -  One of Don John’s more intimate associates, entirely devoted to Don John. Several recent productions have staged Conrad as Don John’s potential male lover, possibly to intensify Don John’s feelings of being a social outcast and therefore motivate his desire for revenge.

Dogberry -  The constable in charge of the Watch, or chief policeman, of Messina. Dogberry is very sincere and takes his job seriously, but he has a habit of using exactly the wrong word to convey his meaning. Dogberry is one of the few “middling sort,” or middle-class characters, in the play, though his desire to speak formally and elaborately like the noblemen becomes an occasion for parody.

Verges -  The deputy to Dogberry, chief policeman of Messina.

Antonio -  Leonato’s elderly brother, and Hero and Beatrice’s uncle.

Balthasar -  A waiting man in Leonato’s household and a musician. Balthasar flirts with Margaret at the masked party and helps Leonato, Claudio, and Don Pedro trick Benedick into falling in love with Beatrice. Balthasar sings the song, “Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more” about accepting men’s infidelity as natural.

Ursula -  One of Hero’s waiting women. 

British Literature Class Notes -- Week 2 (January 28)

Greetings!

We had a marvelous class this week.  I was especially pleased with the questions that the students brought to class.  As they read their assigned portions of Beowulf, they were to think of questions that would help us analyze this piece of ancient literature.  

Every class time I will take their questions and put them up on the board.  Many of the questions will have similar themes, so we will answer them in groups.  In our discussion this week, we talked about parallels to Biblical events and to current events.  I took a couple of photos of the white board full of our questions and related notes.  

Assignment for Next Week:

-- Read History of English Literature (III)

-- Read Beowulf (p. 30 - 57)

-- 3 Discussion Questions

Links for this Week:

Class Notes

Beowulf in Poetic form

Seamus Heaney's Beowulf audiobook, Part 1

Seamus Heaney's Beowulf audiobook, Part 2

Have a great week!

Mrs. Prichard

British Literature Class Notes -- Week 1 (January 21)

Greetings!

It's great to be back at CHAT.  British Literature is one of my favorite classes to teach, and I've got a great group of students to teach this semester.  We have a small class, only 4 students, but I know we'll have great discussions in this class.

We started the class with a look at the syllabus.  We'll be reading Beowulf, Much Ado about Nothing, Great Expectations, Romantic poetry, Victorian poetry, Pygmalion, and The 39 Steps.  As I told the students, the bulk of the work of this class will reading, with very little writing.  Each week, students are to read the assigned portion and to bring discussion questions for the class.

We also took some time at the white board brainstorming about what makes a novel a good book.  We had the categories of Characters, Setting, Plot, and Meaning.  We also listed our favorite books and discussed how they qualified as "good books."

Finally, we started into Beowulf, reading the first 2 short sections.

Assignments for Next Week:

-- Read p. 1 - 30 of Beowulf

-- Write 3 Discussion Questions

-- Read sections I and II of the History of British Literature

Links for this week:

Syllabus

Beowulf responds to Unferth

History of Literature, I & II

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Prichard

British Literature Syllabus, Spring 2016

	Literature Reading Assignment Due this Week	Writing Assignment Due this Week
Week 1 (1/21)	Brief timeline of British History; Introduce Beowulf
Week 2 (1/28)	Discuss Beowulf;	Read History of English Literature (I & II) Read p. 1 – 30; 3 Discussion Questions
Week 3 (2/4)	Discuss Beowulf; Introduce Much Ado About Nothing	Read History of English Literature (III) Read p. 30 – 57; 3 Discussion Questions
Week 4 (2/11)	Discuss Much Ado About Nothing	Read History of English Literature (IV) Read Acts I, II & III; 3 Discussion Questions
Week 5 (2/18)	Discuss Much Ado About Nothing Introduce Great Expectations	Read Acts IV & V; 3 Discussion Questions Read History of English Literature (VII)
No CHAT
Week 6 (3/3)	Discuss Great Expectations	Read p. 1 – 96; 3 Discussion Questions
Week 7 (3/10)	Discuss Great Expectations	Read p. 96 – 191; 3 Discussion Questions
Week 8 (3/17)	Discuss Great Expectations	Read p. 191 – 286; 3 Discussion Questions
Week 9 (3/24)	Discuss Great Expectations; Introduce Poetry	Read p. 286 – 380; 3 Discussion Questions
No CHAT
Week 10 (4/7)	Discuss Poetry (Romantic & Metaphysical Poets)	Read History of English Literature (VI) Poetry selections TBD; 3 Discussion Questions
Week 11 (4/14)	Discuss Poetry (Victorian Poets); Introduce Pygmalion	Read History of English Literature (VII) Poetry selections TBD; 3 Discussion Questions
Week 12 (4/21)	Discuss Pygmalion	Read Acts I, II & III; 3 Discussion Questions
Week 13 (4/28)	Discuss Pygmalion; Introduce 39 Steps	Read Acts IV & V; 3 Discussion Questions
Week 14 (5/5)	Discuss 39 Steps	Read p. 1 – 42; 3 Discussion Questions
Week 15 (5/12)	Discuss 39 Steps	Read p. 43 – 88; 3 Discussion Questions Reflection Paper

BEOWULF RESPONDS TO UNFERTH

Beowulf answered, offspring of Ecgtheow:

“My good friend Unferth, sure freely and wildly,

O friend Unferth, you are fuddled with beer, and cannot talk coherently.

Thou fuddled with beer of Breca hast spoken,

Hast told of his journey! A fact I allege it,

That greater strength in the waters I had then,

Ills in the ocean, than any man else had.

We made agreement as the merest of striplings

Promised each other (both of us then were

We simply kept an engagement made in early life.

Younkers in years) that we yet would adventure

Out on the ocean; it all we accomplished.

While swimming the sea-floods, sword-blade unscabbarded

Boldly we brandished, our bodies expected

To shield from the sharks. He sure was unable

He could not excel me, and I would not excel him.

To swim on the waters further than I could,

More swift on the waves, nor would I from him go.

Then we two companions stayed in the ocean

After five days the currents separated us.

Five nights together, till the currents did part us,

The weltering waters, weathers the bleakest,

And nethermost night, and the north-wind whistled

Fierce in our faces; fell were the billows.

The mere fishes’ mood was mightily ruffled:

And there against foemen my firm-knotted corslet,

Hand-jointed, hardy, help did afford me;

My battle-sark braided, brilliantly gilded,

A horrible sea-beast attacked me, but I slew him. 55

Lay on my bosom. To the bottom then dragged me,

A hateful fiend-scather, seized me and held me,

Grim in his grapple: ’twas granted me, nathless,

To pierce the monster with the point of my weapon,

My obedient blade; battle offcarried

The mighty mere-creature by means of my hand-blow.

History of English Literature, Parts I & II

I. Introduction
English Literature, literature produced in England, from the introduction of Old English by the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century to the present. The works of those Irish and Scottish authors who are closely identified with English life and letters are also considered part of English literature
            This period extends from about 450 to 1066, the year of the Norman-French conquest of England. The Germanic tribes from Europe who overran England in the 5th century, after the Roman withdrawal, brought with them the Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, language, which is the basis of Modern English. They brought also a specific poetic tradition, the formal character of which remained surprisingly constant until the termination of their rule by the Norman-French invaders six centuries later.

II.  Old English
A. Poetry
             Much of Old English poetry was probably intended to be chanted, with harp accompaniment, by the Anglo-Saxon scop, or bard. Often bold and strong, but also mournful and elegiac in spirit, this poetry emphasizes the sorrow and ultimate futility of life and the helplessness of humans before the power of fate. Almost all this poetry is composed without rhyme, in a characteristic line, or verse, of four stressed syllables alternating with an indeterminate number of unstressed ones. This line strikes strangely on ears habituated to the usual modern pattern, in which the rhythmical unit, or foot, theoretically consists of a constant number (either one or two) of unaccented syllables that always precede or follow any stressed syllable. Another unfamiliar but equally striking feature in the formal character of Old English poetry is structural alliteration, or the use of syllables beginning with similar sounds in two or three of the stresses in each line.
            All these qualities of form and spirit are exemplified in the epic poem Beowulf written in the 8th century. Beginning and ending with the funeral of a great king, and composed against a background of impending disaster, it describes the exploits of a Scandinavian cultural hero, Beowulf, in destroying the monster Grendel, Grendel's mother, and a fire-breathing dragon. In these sequences Beowulf is shown not only as a glorious hero but as a savior of the people. The Old Germanic virtue of mutual loyalty between leader and followers is evoked effectively and touchingly in the aged Beowulf's sacrifice of his life and in the reproaches heaped on the retainers who desert him in this climactic battle. The extraordinary artistry with which fragments of other heroic tales are incorporated to illumine the main action, and with which the whole plot is reduced to symmetry, has only recently been fully recognized.
            Another feature of Beowulf is the weakening of the sense of the ultimate power of arbitrary fate. The injection of the Christian idea of dependence on a just God is evident. That feature is typical of other Old English literature, for almost all of what survives was preserved by monastic copyists. Most of it was actually composed by religious writers after the early conversion of the people from their faith in the older Germanic divinities.
            Sacred legend and story were reduced to verse in poems resembling Beowulf in form. At first such verse was rendered in the somewhat simple, stark style of the poems of Caedmon, a humble man of the late 7th century who was described by the historian and theologian Saint Bede the Venerable as having received the gift of song from God. Later the same type of subject matter was treated in the more ornate language of the Anglo-Saxon poet Cynewulf and his school. The best of their productions is probably the passionate “Dream of the Rood.”
            In addition to these religious compositions, Old English poets produced a number of more or less lyrical poems of shorter length, which do not contain specific Christian doctrine and which evoke the Anglo-Saxon sense of the harshness of circumstance and the sadness of the human lot. “The Wanderer” and “The Seafarer” are among the most beautiful of this group of Old English poems.