Much Ado

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Themes: • Criticism of the Renaissance Patriarchy: Feminism and Misogyny • Deception of language- ‘Much Ado”: Misrepresentation and Exaggeration • Class divide: Dogberry and his malapropisms Characters to... More

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Themes: • Criticism of the Renaissance Patriarchy: Feminism and Misogyny • Deception of language- ‘Much Ado”: Misrepresentation and Exaggeration • Class divide: Dogberry and his malapropisms Characters to study: • Hero • Claudio • Beatrice • Benedick • Don Pedro • Don John • Leonato • Dogberry • Margaret • Borachio • Friar Francis • • Much Ado About Nothing: • Great fuss over something insignificant • ‘Nothing’: Double entendre- Elizabethan slang for female genitalia- women exist as a space only for men to fill, both physically through sexual acts and abstractly through verbal interpretation • ‘Noting’: Homophone in that time- meaning eavesdropping- theme of deception Less