Much Ado About Nothing

By William Shakespeare and Paul Werstine

The authoritative edition of Much Ado About Nothing from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers.

One of Shakespeare’s most frequently performed comedies, Much Ado About Nothing includes two quite different stories of romantic love. Hero and Claudio fall in love almost at first sight, but an outsider, Don John, strikes out at their happiness. Beatrice and Benedick are kept apart by pride and mutual antagonism until others decide to play Cupid.

The Folger Library is the nation’s best, most navigable and most respected resource for Shakespeare scholarship and teaching. The authoritative edition of Much Ado About Nothing features the side-by-side format favored by both students and teachers, as well as guides to the play’s most famous lines and Shakespearean phrases and language.

This edition includes:

-The exact text of the printed book for easy cross-reference
-Hundreds of hypertext links for instant navigation
-Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play
-Full explanatory notes conveniently linked to the text of the play
-Scene-by-scene plot summaries
-A key to the play’s famous lines and phrases
-An introduction to reading Shakespeare’s language
-An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play
-Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library’s vast holdings of rare books
-An annotated guide to further reading

Essay by Gail Kern Paster

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare’s printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit Folger.edu.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release date: Apr 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781476788555

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is the world's greatest ever playwright. Born in 1564, he split his time between Stratford-upon-Avon and London, where he worked as a playwright, poet and actor. In 1582 he married Anne Hathaway. Shakespeare died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two, leaving three children—Susanna, Hamnet and Judith. The rest is silence.

Book preview

About this eBook

This eBook contains special symbols that are important for reading and understanding the text. In order to view them correctly, please activate your device’s Publisher Font or Original font setting; use of optional fonts on your device may result in missing, or incorrect, special symbols.

Also, please keep in mind that Shakespeare wrote his plays and poems over four hundred years ago, during a time when the English language was in many ways different than it is today. Because the built-in dictionary on many devices is designed for modern English, be advised that the definitions it provides may not apply to the words as Shakespeare uses them. Whenever available, always check the glosses linked to the text for a proper definition before consulting the built-in dictionary.

THE NEW FOLGER LIBRARY

SHAKESPEARE

Designed to make Shakespeare’s great plays available to all readers, the New Folger Library edition of Shakespeare’s plays provides accurate texts in modern spelling and punctuation, as well as scene-by-scene action summaries, full explanatory notes, many pictures clarifying Shakespeare’s language, and notes recording all significant departures from the early printed versions. Each play is prefaced by a brief introduction, by a guide to reading Shakespeare’s language, and by accounts of his life and theater. Each play is followed by an annotated list of further readings and by a Modern Perspective written by an expert on that particular play.

Barbara A. Mowat is Director of Research emerita at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Consulting Editor of Shakespeare Quarterly, and author of The Dramaturgy of Shakespeare’s Romances and of essays on Shakespeare’s plays and their editing.

Paul Werstine is Professor of English at the Graduate School and at King’s University College at Western University. He is a general editor of the New Variorum Shakespeare and author of Early Modern Playhouse Manuscripts and the Editing of Shakespeare, as well as many papers and essays on the printing and editing of Shakespeare’s plays.

The Folger Shakespeare Library

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is a privately funded research library dedicated to Shakespeare and the civilization of early modern Europe. It was founded in 1932 by Henry Clay and Emily Jordan Folger, and incorporated as part of Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts, one of the nation’s oldest liberal arts colleges, from which Henry Folger had graduated in 1879. In addition to its role as the world’s preeminent Shakespeare collection and its emergence as a leading center for Renaissance studies, the Folger Shakespeare Library offers a wide array of cultural and educational programs and services for the general public.

EDITORS

BARBARA A. MOWAT

Director of Research emerita

Folger Shakespeare Library

PAUL WERSTINE

Professor of English

King’s University College at Western University, Canada

From the Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library

It is hard to imagine a world without Shakespeare. Since their composition more than four hundred years ago, Shakespeare’s plays and poems have traveled the globe, inviting those who see and read his works to make them their own.

Readers of the New Folger Editions are part of this ongoing process of taking up Shakespeare, finding our own thoughts and feelings in language that strikes us as old or unusual and, for that very reason, new. We still struggle to keep up with a writer who could think a mile a minute, whose words paint pictures that shift like clouds. These expertly edited texts are presented as a resource for study, artistic exploration, and enjoyment. As a new generation of readers engages Shakespeare in eBook form, they will encounter the classic texts of the New Folger Editions, with trusted notes and up-to-date critical essays available at their fingertips. Now readers can enjoy expertly edited, modern editions of Shakespeare anywhere they bring their e-reading devices, allowing readers not simply to keep up, but to engage deeply with a writer whose works invite us to think, and think again.

The New Folger Editions of Shakespeare’s plays, which are the basis for the texts realized here in digital form, are special because of their origin. The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is the single greatest documentary source of Shakespeare’s works. An unparalleled collection of early modern books, manuscripts, and artwork connected to Shakespeare, the Folger’s holdings have been consulted extensively in the preparation of these texts. The Editions also reflect the expertise gained through the regular performance of Shakespeare’s works in the Folger’s Elizabethan Theater.

I want to express my deep thanks to editors Barbara Mowat and Paul Werstine for creating these indispensable editions of Shakespeare’s works, which incorporate the best of textual scholarship with a richness of commentary that is both inspired and engaging. Readers who want to know more about Shakespeare and his plays can follow the paths these distinguished scholars have tread by visiting the Folger either in person or online, where a range of physical and digital resources exist to supplement the material in these texts. I commend to you these words, and hope that they inspire.

Michael Witmore

Director, Folger Shakespeare Library

Contents

Editors’ Preface

Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing

Reading Shakespeare’s Language:

Much Ado About Nothing

Shakespeare’s Life

Shakespeare’s Theater

The Publication of Shakespeare’s Plays

An Introduction to This Text

Characters in the Play

Much Ado About Nothing

Text of the Play with Commentary

Act 1

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Act 2

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Act 3

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

Act 4

Scene 1

Scene 2

Act 5

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Longer Notes

Textual Notes

Much Ado About Nothing: A Modern Perspective

by Gail Kern Paster

Further Reading

Key to Famous Lines and Phrases

Commentary

Act 1

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Act 2

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Act 3

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Scene 5

Act 4

Scene 1

Scene 2

Act 5

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

Editors’ Preface

In recent years, ways of dealing with Shakespeare’s texts and with the interpretation of his plays have been undergoing significant change. This edition, while retaining many of the features that have always made the Folger Shakespeare so attractive to the general reader, at the same time reflects these current ways of thinking about Shakespeare. For example, modern readers, actors, and teachers have become interested in the differences between, on the one hand, the early forms in which Shakespeare’s plays were first published and, on the other hand, the forms in which editors through the centuries have presented them. In response to this interest, we have based our edition on what we consider the best early printed version of a particular play (explaining our rationale in a section called An Introduction to This Text) and have marked our changes in the text—unobtrusively, we hope, but in such a way that the curious reader can be aware that a change has been made and can consult the Textual Notes to discover what appeared in the early printed version.

Current ways of looking at the plays are reflected in our brief prefaces, in many of the commentary notes, in the annotated lists of Further Reading, and especially in each play’s Modern Perspective, an essay written by an outstanding scholar who brings to the reader his or her fresh assessment of the play in the light of today’s interests and concerns.

As in the Folger Library General Reader’s Shakespeare, which this edition replaces, we include explanatory notes designed to help make Shakespeare’s language clearer to a modern reader, and we hyperlink notes to the lines that they explain. We also follow the earlier edition in including illustrations—of objects, of clothing, of mythological figures—from books and manuscripts in the Folger Library collection. We provide fresh accounts of the life of Shakespeare, of the publishing of his plays, and of the theaters in which his plays were performed, as well as an introduction to the text itself. We also include a section called Reading Shakespeare’s Language, in which we try to help readers learn to break the code of Elizabethan poetic language.

For each section of each volume, we are indebted to a host of generous experts and fellow scholars. The Reading Shakespeare’s Language sections, for example, could not have been written had not Arthur King, of Brigham Young University, and Randal Robinson, author of Unlocking Shakespeare’s Language, led the way in untangling Shakespearean language puzzles and generously shared their insights and methodologies with us. Shakespeare’s Life profited by the careful reading given it by S. Schoenbaum, Shakespeare’s Theater was read and strengthened by Andrew Gurr and John Astington, and The Publication of Shakespeare’s Plays is indebted to the comments of Peter W. M. Blayney. We, as editors, take sole responsibility for any errors in our editions.

We are grateful to the authors of the Modern Perspectives; to Leeds Barroll and David Bevington for their generous encouragement; to the Huntington and Newberry Libraries for fellowship support; to King’s College for the grants it has provided to Paul Werstine; to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, which provided him with a Research Time Stipend for 1990–91; to R. J. Shroyer of the University of Western Ontario for essential computer support; to Penny Gill and Eva Mary Hooker for insightful conversations about the language of Much Ado About Nothing; to Skiles Howard and Scott Reiss for advice on Renaissance music and dance; and to the Folger Institute’s Center for Shakespeare Studies for its fortuitous sponsorship of a workshop on Shakespeare’s Texts for Students and Teachers (funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and led by Richard Knowles of the University of Wisconsin), a workshop from which we learned an enormous amount about what is wanted by college and high-school teachers of Shakespeare today.

Our biggest debt is to Michael Witmore, Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, who brings to our work a gratifying enthusiasm and vision; to Gail Kern Paster, Director of the Library from 2002 until July 2011, whose interest and support have been unfailing and whose scholarly expertise continues to be an invaluable resource; and to Werner Gundersheimer, the Library’s Director from 1984 to 2002, who made possible our edition; to Jean Miller, the Library’s Art Curator, who combs the Library holdings for illustrations, and to Julie Ainsworth, Head of the Photography Department, who carefully photographs them; to Peggy O’Brien, Director of Education, and her assistant, Molly Haws, who continue to give us expert advice about the needs being expressed by Shakespeare teachers and students (and to Martha Christian and other master teachers who used our texts in manuscript in their classrooms); to Jessica Hymowitz, who provides expert computer support; to the staff of the Academic Programs Division, especially Mary Tonkinson, Lena Cowen Orlin, Toni Krieger, Amy Adler, Kathleen Lynch, and Carol Brobeck; and, finally, to the staff of the Library Reading Room, whose patience and support are invaluable.

Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine

Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing

Much Ado About Nothing is one of Shakespeare’s more popular comedies, with a long history of success on the stage. Much of its appeal lies in its two stories of romantic love with their quite different journeys to comedy’s happy ending. Hero and Claudio fall in love almost at first sight; their union has the blessing of the older generation (in the persons of Hero’s father, Leonato, and Claudio’s prince, Don Pedro). All should be well. But from the outside comes the virulent force of Don John, who acts with the kind of malice that strikes out at whatever promises to make someone else happy. For Hero and Claudio to find happiness, they must go beyond Don John’s treachery, Claudio’s own weak jealousy, Don Pedro’s touchy sense of his own honor, and Leonato’s too credulous paternal fury. It takes a second (unlikely) outside force in the guise of the bumbling, officious Dogberry to offer any hope of bringing Hero’s truth to light.

The story of Beatrice and Benedick is quite other. They are kept apart not by a vicious outsider but by their pride in their own brilliance and by their mutual antagonism and distrust. Both express aversion to marriage; each finds particular pleasure in attacking the other. To outsiders, they seem an ideal pair. So the outsiders decide to play Cupid.

Over the centuries the Beatrice-Benedick plot has most captivated audiences and readers. King Charles I, in his copy of Shakespeare’s plays, crossed out the play’s title and renamed it Beatrice and Benedick, and a prefatory poem in a 1640 edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets says, "Let but Beatrice / And Benedick be seene, lo, in a trice / The Cockpit, Galleries, Boxes all are full." And Berlioz’s opera version of Much Ado is named Béatrice et Bénédict. It is generally agreed that Beatrice and Benedick are the model for the witty lovers in comic drama of later centuries; and it can be argued that they led as well to Jane Austen’s Elizabeth and Darcy in Pride and Prejudice and to Scarlett and Rhett in Gone With the Wind.

Map of Spain, France, and Italy.

From Giovanni Botero, Le relationi vniuersali . . . (1618).

It is, however, the conjunction of the Beatrice and Benedick story with the story of Hero and Claudio that makes Much Ado so rich and rewarding a play. Beatrice and Benedick, faced with humiliating descriptions of what they had considered their most prized character traits, learn to suffer love and to eat their meat without grudging; simultaneously, Claudio and Hero are forced into an experience that acquaints them first with life’s darkness (with treachery, betrayal, vicious jealousy, public shaming, and abandonment) and then with quite unexpected joy (with the recovery of the irrevocably lost, with discovery at the unlikely hands of the play’s shallow fools). It can be argued that, while the play calls itself "Much Ado About Nothing," its stories are actually much ado about life at its most important.

After you have read the play, we invite you to read "Much Ado About Nothing: A Modern Perspective," by Professor Gail Kern Paster of George Washington University, contained within this eBook.

Reading Shakespeare’s Language: Much Ado About Nothing

For many people today, reading Shakespeare’s language can be a problem—but it is a problem that can be solved. Those who have studied Latin (or even French or German or Spanish) and those who are used to reading poetry will have little difficulty understanding the language of poetic drama. Others, however, need to develop the skills of untangling unusual sentence structures and of recognizing and understanding poetic compressions, omissions, and wordplay. And even those skilled in reading unusual sentence structures may have occasional trouble with Shakespeare’s words. More than four hundred years of static—caused by changes in language and in life—intervene between his speaking and our hearing. Most of his vocabulary is still in use, but a few of his words are no longer used, and many of his words now have meanings quite different from those they had in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the theater, most of these difficulties are solved for us by actors who study the language and articulate it for us so that the essential meaning is heard—or, when combined with stage action, is at least felt. When we are reading on our own, we must do what each actor does: go over the lines (often with a dictionary close at hand) until the puzzles are solved and the lines yield up their poetry and the characters speak in words and phrases that are, suddenly, rewarding and wonderfully memorable.

Shakespeare’s Words

As you begin to read the opening scenes of a play by Shakespeare, you may notice occasional unfamiliar words. Some are unfamiliar simply because we no longer use them. In the opening scenes of Much Ado About Nothing, for example, you will find the words squarer (i.e., fighter, quarreler), methinks (it seems to me), recheat (the notes of a hunting horn), baldrick (a belt for holding bugles, swords, etc.), and arras (a hanging screen of rich tapestry fabric). Words of this kind are explained in notes to the text and will become familiar the more of Shakespeare’s plays you read.

Messina.

From Pietro Bertelli, Theatrum vrbium Italicarum . . . (1599).

In Much Ado About Nothing, as in all of Shakespeare’s writing, more problematic are the words that we still use but that we use with a different meaning. In the opening scenes of Much Ado, for example, the word tax has the meaning of take to task, criticize, stomach is used where we would say appetite, halting where we would say limping, sad where we would say serious, and winded where we would say sounded, blown. Such words will be explained in the notes to the text, but they, too, will become familiar as you continue to read Shakespeare’s language.

Some words are strange not because of the static introduced by changes in language over the past centuries but because these are words that Shakespeare is using to build a dramatic world that has its own geography and history and background mythology. Much Ado About Nothing, for example, through references to Messina, Venice, and Padua, to thick-pleached alleys and orchards, creates a location on a wealthy estate in Italy. Through military language—action (i.e., military engagement), sort (i.e., rank), and sworn brother (i.e., brother-in-arms)—it places itself in time, just at the end of a war. Through complicated references to Cupid and his arrows and to Hercules (a mythological figure prominent both for his massive strength and for his helplessness when trapped by love), it also builds a world in which warfare and romantic love are intricately intertwined. These local words and references (each of which will be explained in notes to this text) help to build the world that Beatrice, Benedick, Hero, and Claudio inhabit, and will become increasingly familiar to you as you read

Reviews for Much Ado About Nothing

[regularguy5mb · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Much Ado is, by far, my absolute favorite Shakespeare. The humor, the wit, the back and forth (especially between Benedick and Beatrice) just ticks all the boxes for greatness.This particular copy I picked up from a local library sale just before I was supposed to teach Shakespeare to 10th graders as part of my student teaching. I chose Much Ado because it was the lightest of my three choices (the others being Othello and Julius Caesar), but also the play I knew best. As I told my students at the time, Much Ado is a prime example of an early form of the situational comedy, where all the misunderstandings could be easily avoided if only certain parties would talk to one another, but then there really would be Nothing going on.And, always remember, Dogberry is an ass.

[therebelprince · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Phenomenal scholarly edition.

[391_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Much Ado is definitely my favorite of Shakespeare's comedies. It's good on its own, and a good performance just makes it incredible.

[areadingmachine · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Love this play and love the rapport and verbal sparring between Benedict and Beatrice almost more than anything other Shakespearean dialogue

[shuffy2_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays! The worthy Claudio falls for the beautiful Hero, but will his love hold up when he thinks her unvirtuous? To me the real scene grabber is the word play between the quick witted Beatrice and the glory hound Benedick. Both swear they will never love; Benedick a sworn bachelor and Beatrice finds men, in particular Benedick, a 'stuffed man' equal to 'pestilence'. This book is fun and clever! Don't be afraid of Shakespeare's words- a must read!

[choco12kitty · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

For the first time I can actually say that I liked a Shakespeare play! This translation helped me get through the text with it's side and end notes. Much Ado About Nothing was a book that I enjoyed reading.It had all the components I like: drama and romance, yet wasn't focused on just one area. The only thing I didn't like was the ending, I thought Benedick and Beatrice had actually changed, but really hadn't. This book deserves it's stars.

[kerilynned · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this more than I thought I would, maybe because I read the modern translation of it. It really made the story easier to understand. I think the part I liked the most was Benedick and Beatrice's relationship. It brought some very much needed humor to the play.

[yonitdm · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A fun comedy with love, intrigue, deceit for good and deceit for bad. As a mouthy broad, I love Beatrice and could relate to the hesitation to drop the tough act and be vulnerable.

[nwhyte-2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The play itself is genuinely funny, not quite as funny as A Comedy of Errors, but a better play - the characters are better rounded, and the drama frankly more believable. Beatrice is surely one of the most memorable female roles in Shakespeare (I think only Portia is in the same league). I see from IMDB that her role was played by Penelope Keith in the 1978 BBC version, and by Maggie Smith in a 1967 version which also starred Caroline "Liz Shaw" John as Hero. But the overall frame is good too, the contrast between the Claudia/Hero and Beatrice/Benedick romances, neither of which is straightforward, but complicated in different ways. The Dogberry bits are, for once, pretty integral to the plot, though I suspect it is difficult to integrate them with satisfactory unity of style. (If I were staging it, I'd have Dogberry's guards and maybe even Dogberyy himself visible in the background in all the early crowd scenes, so that they don't appear out of nowhere in Act III.)Branagh's version is generally beautiful to watch and listen to. The good points include the general sense of movement on screen; the quite gorgeous Kate Beckinsale, who dropped out of Oxford to make this (and who can dispute that she made the right decision); the brilliance of most of the cast (especially the elders, Richard Briers, Brian Blessed, and, where she is allowed, Phyllida Law); and above all the sparkling chemistry between Branagh himself and Thompson (indeed, they almost seem to like each other too much at the beginning). The most serious misfire is with Keanu Reeves, who doesn't quite seem to understand what he is doing there except being Bad. I didn't object as much to Michael Keaton as Dogberry, perhaps because he kept inflicting senseless violence on Ben Elton, which is never a bad thing. I did, however, feel that the darker passages of Act IV hit the tone unduly; most of Branagh's cuts to the script are from the funny bits earlier in the play, and I think that unbalances Shakespeare's original plot dynamic, and results a darker piece perhaps than was intended perhaps by Branagh and certainly by Shakespeare.

[martinbodek · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

By my troth, 'twas I indeed
That, marry, hath enjoyed much
It filleth in me the need
To enjoyeth puns and such
Romantics of wordplayers
Was virginal territory
Through the speakers and the sayers
of scribesmithery's glory
Appettite is whetted for more from The Bard
How could life without him have not been very hard?

[coach_of_alva · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I am not surprised that a tragedy could affect people, no matter how old it was, but I am very surprised that so old a comedy could work so well. I was as moved by this play as I have been by his tragedies. How I regret that it took me so long to read this.

[comfypants · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It's a perfectly good play, although the humor almost never works. Shakespeare is just not funny.

[meandmybooks-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I'm surprised that I haven't commented on this one after a previous reading, as it's one of my very favorites. Though I'll admit that the Claudio/Hero plot is pretty infuriating, Beatrice and Benedick have more than enough charm to compensate for Claudio's shallow, opportunistic fickleness and Hero's pathetic lack of spunk. B&B are easily my favorite pair of lovers in Shakespeare – witty, sensitive, thoughtful, complex... just utterly delightful. And this time I had Marjorie Garber's excellent piece to point out some things I'd missed up til now. My favorite new tidbit – not important but a fun, “insider” joke (as in, Shakespeare's original audience would have appreciated it) was about the malapropism spouting Dogberry...”The role of Dogberry was originally played by Will Kemp, the same actor who played Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and we might imagine that spectators would make this connection. Dogberry/Kemp has already be “writ down an ass,”with equal insouciant triumph, in Shakespeare's earlier play.”Garber also explains the connection between “nothing” and “noting,” which I'd previously not “noted.” (the Folger edition also comments on this, saying “There is some evidence that 'nothing' and 'noting' were pronounced alike in Shakespeare's day. If so, this word is yet another pun on 'nothing,' and the title of the play itself could be heard as 'Much Ado about Noting.'”) She elaborates on this a bit, highlighting some of the many places where “noting” is significant. Just another detail that helped me enjoy the play even more. I listened to the Arkangel audio performance while I read, which is, as always, well done, though perhaps lacking the intensity and sparkle that I want with some of this dialogue. Also, I watched (for the umpteenth time) the Tate/Tennant performance, which is my favorite, though the Thompson/Branagh is also brilliant and wonderful (and might be my favorite if I'd just watched it), and I enjoyed the Whedon too. Today I'm planning to watch the Shakespeare Retold version, which I've never seen, but the others in the series have been good, so I have high hopes for this one. Did I mention that this is my favorite of the comedies?

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A weak story saved by the bickering of Beatrix and Benedick. Their relationship and the scheme to get together was definitely the highlight of the play.

[meditationesmartini · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Charles II wrote "Benedick and Beatrice" beside the title of the play in his copy of the Second Folio, as I have also done where Much Ado is inscribed on my heart.

[antao-3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Things and the Nothings: "Much Ado About Nothing" by William Shakespeare, Sylvan Barnet, David L. Stevenson Published 1989.


NB: Read in tandem with the Branagh, Whedon and BBC’s versions. This review draws extensively from my reading of the three movies, as well as from my re-reading of the play.

Let’s get this out of the way first. “Much Ado about Nothing” is one of my favourite Shakespeare’s plays.

Each time I re-read it, I always feel Shakespeare uses it as part of the macho banter in the male-dominated culture of this soldier band of brothers, but it also has a serious side in creating a sense of male insecurity and mistrust of women.

The entire play is underlaid with mistrust of women- Benedick's first line is, "were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?" Leonato's jest lightly plays with the stereotype of the unfaithful wife and the masculine fear of raising another man's son and Benedick immediately takes him up on it. I think Shakespeare is creating a cast of men who are very much in a male only world and struggle to trust women on any level. It's notable that Don John is a known quantity and yet both Claudio and Don Pedro are quick to believe their eyes and fall for his trap, even though they themselves have just set a similar trap for Benedick and Beatrice and might be expected to stop and think how easily such a thing could be faked. Leonato immediately believes his daughter is corrupt, though only a second's reflection should make him realize that he (and Beatrice) could not have been unaware of a "thousand" midnight meetings between Hero and her imagined swain.

The rest of this review can be found elsewhere.

[bell7_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In this Shakespeare comedy, we have two pairs to keep track of: Hero and Claudio, and Beatrice and Bernadick. Hero and Claudio seem well on their way to matrimony until Don John, the bastard brother of the prince Don Pedro, decides to make trouble and break them up. Meanwhile, Beatrice and Bernadick seem more interested in trading barbs than anything else, but their friends decide to set them up and make them fall in love.While this play doesn't have many recognizable one liners that are constantly quoted even once we've forgotten they're Shakespeare, I found myself wondering why Much Ado wasn't one of the plays I studied in high school or college. Because for just pure fun, and funny moments, and witticisms galore, this has suddenly become one of my favorite plays. Plus, it's fairly accessible - I truly barely needed the notes, and it's been a few years since I've read Shakespeare. It's worth reading just for the (very minor) characters of Verges and Dogberry, the witless malapropists. Why haven't I read this before now?

[mrslee_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I watched the movie with Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson before I read the play. I'm glad I did, because it brought a depth of imagery which enhanced the reading. I enjoy this story very much, so clever, although, my modern sensibilities are quite wounded that Hero would consent so easily to marry Claudio after his great lack of faith in her and his horrible treatment of her. The working of Beatrice and Benedick is a joy to behold.

[howe3488 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

My favourite Shakespeare! I love the interactions between the characters in this book, very witty. Much emphasis placed on how things can become misconstrued when eavesdropping occurs - lots to take into your own life, whilst being very entertaining. Obviously being Shakespeare though not an "easy read".

[cargocontainer · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have long held that plays were meant to be performed, not read. This holds true for this play, which is quite a good one. I've seen performance versions before, which significantly helped me follow the play as it was written, but found that without the deliveries of actors, the result largely falls flat compared to the spoken, performed versions. I enjoyed it far more than I would have had I not been familiar with the story through performance.

[aoibhealfae · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Like Neil Gaiman, Shakespeare's drama is best seen and heard rather than read. There were a realm of dramatic wonders and non-verbal interpretations that didn't exist in the text form. Considering the last time I read anything by Shakespeare was high school, its been long overdue for me. Granted, I have a decent cause to fear older plays. Woman in older literature aren't as well-received nor well-written as the male counterpart. Romeo and Juliet -which I read for SPM- never really give me those warm feeling due to the fact that the two children were barely pre-teen and they're willing to die for each other within days after meeting. So, Shakespeare wasn't my kind of love story.

Much Ado About Nothing revolve around the relationship between Hero and Claudio, the characters and family, reputations, lies and trickery that would make Puck proud. Its also consisted of a love story between Benedick and Beatrice who was sworn enemy but was tricked by their relatives and eventually they fall in love with each other and mostly used as a comic humor throughout the scenes. But a large part of the story involve the machination by Don John who are determine to wreck the happiness of the characters in the book.
But it was there were serious terrible overtones of public slut-shaming that made the story painful to be seen without trying to murder somebody. Hated hated words. Apparently these things can be solved by fake deaths and all the dramas and forgiveness and groveling. Pfff. This is also the reason why most production focus on the dynamics between Benedick and Beatrice rather than the actual couple of the story. However, if anyone doing a local production of this story, just ping me up. I want to watch it live.

[renrav · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I primarily wanted to read this for the upcoming Joss Whedon movie. I am terrible at understanding Shakespeare by myself. I think I did okay understanding it, and I enjoyed what I understood. But I'll probably have to reread this before the movie with a different edition. Mine was on the kindle and I kept having to go back and forth on the footnotes.

[thassin1991 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Viel Lärm um nichts ist eine Komödie um Liebe und Intrigen von William Shakespeare. Das Buch ist wohl eine der lebendigsten Komödien von William Shakespeare. In dem Intrigenstück geht es vor allem um Wahrheit und Täuschung, Verstellung und Verkleidung, aber auch um Liebe, Freundschaft und Verrat. Auf dem Rückweg von einem siegreichen Kriegszug besuchen Don Pedro, Claudio und Benedikt den Gouverneur von Messina, Leonato. Während sich Benedikt und Leonatos Nichte Beatrice bei jeder Gelegenheit Wortgefechte liefern und sich die gegenseitige Liebe nicht eingestehen, hält Claudio um die Hand der Gouverneurstochter Hero an. Don Pedros Halbbruder Don Juan missgönnt Claudio das Glück und verhindert mit einer Intrige die Hochzeit. Dieser Klassiker ist leicht und flüssig zu lesen und reißt den Leser durch seine witzigen Dialoge mit.

[the_awesome_opossum · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Much Ado About Nothing is simply a fun play to read. Plenty of banter, wordplay, and just ridiculous situations - and it all reads in a very modern way, not dated or irrelevant at all. There are some more sobering bits about female sexuality and how the society treasures virginity with Hero's storyline, but really, the relationship between Beatrice and Benedick is what keeps this play afloat

[tiffanyak_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a Shakespearean Comedy of Manners from before the genre was even really a fully developed thing, featuring love affairs, a revenge plot, some humorous incompetence, a faked death, and much more. I'm not a big comedy fan, but this is certainly a good example of the genre at the time from which it came, and I actually quite enjoyed it. As to the edition itself, I found it to be greatly helpful in understanding the action in the play. It has a layout which places each page of the play opposite a page of notes, definitions, explanations, and other things needed to understand that page more thoroughly. While I didn't always need it, I was certainly glad to have it whenever I ran into a turn of language that was unfamiliar, and I definitely appreciated the scene-by-scene summaries. Really, if you want to or need to read Shakespeare, an edition such as this is really the way to go, especially until you get more accustomed to it.

[amerynth · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed reading William Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing." I suspected I would like it, having seen the Kenneth Branaugh movie many years ago... and the play itself did not disappoint.The play is a lot of "he loves me... he loves me not." With the most interesting characters being Beatrice and Benedick, who hate each other enough that it's got to be love. There are good side plots and the well-work Shakespearean disguise, which actually works fairly well here.

[n.t.embe · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

There are some people that absolutely worship Shakespeare as an absolute genius of his time, and therefore find him immortalized for all of time. Personally, I love his work, and at the time time, I don't. I think I adore his tragedies, but find it hard for myself to truly fall in love with any of his other pieces. Are they enjoyable? Yes, yes they very much are. But they just don't wow me like I expect them to.

That was the case with the famous Much Ado About Nothing, which makes the title quite ironic, don't you think? It was a pleasant read. And as one of Shakespeare's comedies, it did have quite the few entertaining parts. I think it's especially the kind of play you'd want to read if you're looking to sit back, relax, and enjoy some nonsense and chaos that winds up in some expected romance.

To be perfectly honest, while mildly entertaining, as a whole the play only had one or two parts that absolutely had me cracking grins and laughing. And those were scenes not involving any of the main characters, but rather a bumbling side character that ironically ends up being the only capable one in the entire play filled with supposed royals and super intelligent, conniving people! His name is even weird! Dogberry! And yet he's so gung-ho about everything that he does, and he's so passionate, he constantly says the wrong thing even though we all know what he meant, that you can't help but have a good time watching him somehow manage to work his way through all this "serious" crap going on around him!

Ah, but besides him, I can't quite find anyone else worth laughing for. Sure there's our main couple that supposedly hate each other but who we all know are gonna end up together at the end. They're kinda entertaining, especially since as usual Shakespeare's words are loaded with wit and bite. *Chuckles*

Either way, I say this is one to try out. Shakespeare isn't everyone's cup of tea. So don't go off buying it just 'cause a ton of people obsess over the author. Try it out first. If you like it, copies are cheap enough to find. Hope you enjoy!

[ron_peters-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A delight; we all need love and comedy. The prototype for every book, play or movie since about lovers, initially repulsed by mutual antagonism and distrust, then drawn together by the sheer force of their fast and witty repartee. "Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue." Harold Bloom isn't wild about it; much the worse for Harry.

[aulsmith · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This isn't one of my favorites. I find the plot convoluted and the word play between Benedick and Beatrice tiresome.

[briony_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I loved this play so much that I wrote my thesis on it (partially). If I had known of this play in high school I would not have hated Shakespeare as much as I did.