For Thursday: Much Ado About Nothing, Acts 3-5

For Thursday, try to finish the play, since after Act 3, Acts 4 and 5 are quite short. No questions this time, but we'll have an in-class response question when you get to class. However, here are some ideas to consider as you read (you do NOT have to answer these--they're just thought-provoking): 

* Consider how love is almost always a form of manipulation in this play. Don Pedro pretends to be Claudio to woo Hero; everyone lies to Benedick and Beatrice to get them to fall in love; and even Don John manipulates Claudio OUT of love with his lies. What might this say about the nature of love in this play? Is anyone in love of their own free will? Or is it always a "trap," as Hero suggests in Act 3?

* There is much more verse in the play in Acts 3 & 4: Hero and Ursula speak verse throughout their trick to Beatrice, and Claudio speaks it throughout the entire wedding scene, as does Don Pedro and Leonto. Why is this? Why might verse be more appropriate/effective than prose? What should it 'sound' like?

* As this is a play all about acting, it's also a play about seeing--or the inability to see. At one point, Claudio says, "You seem to me as Dian in her orb...But you are more intemperate in your blood/Than Venus" (127). In other words, you are not the woman I see (Diana--the virgin huntress) but the woman I've been told to see Venus (the goddess of erotic love). Why don't most characters trust appearances in this play? And which ones do? What is this even more interesting for the audience, since we 'see' everything?

* Why do you think Dogberry only appears in Act 3, almost at the end of the play? Indeed, he almost seems like an afterthought, but a very good one. Why do you think Shakespeare added him into the mix? 

* Why is it significant that Benedick never speaks verse in the entire play, and when he tries to write a poem, it's really awful? Does this suggest he cannot love sincerely? Is it all a sort of act to him? OR, is poetry itself a kind of act that can be more false than true?

* Why do Beatrice and Benedick almost fall out of love at the end of the play? Why might this very misunderstanding explain the nature of their conflict in Act 1? Might this have happened before?

* Why does Don John just disappear from the play after Act 4, and when he is finally mentioned again, Benedick merely says, "Think not on him till tomorrow"? Is it clumsy of Shakespeare to use him as a mere plot device and then discard him? 

* And related to the above, in a sense, is Don Pedro just as bad as Don John (they are brothers, after all)? Or to put this in another light, is Don Pedro just better intentioned than Don John? Do they basically do the same things to the same people, just with slightly different results? And is Don Pedro secretly a bit malicious himself?