{"id":250,"date":"2012-10-01T20:39:09","date_gmt":"2012-10-01T20:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ovsc\/?page_id=250"},"modified":"2012-10-15T19:24:31","modified_gmt":"2012-10-15T19:24:31","slug":"a-merry-war-shakespeares-revision-of-bandello","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ovsc\/issues\/volume-i-2007\/a-merry-war-shakespeares-revision-of-bandello\/","title":{"rendered":"“A Merry War”: Shakespeare’s Revision of Bandello"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul F. Weinhold,\u00a0University of Dallas<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Shakespeare consulted many sources as he composed Much Ado About Nothing <\/em>(Ado<\/em>), a comedy that follows the wooing of two pairs of lovers.1<\/sup> For the Claudio-Hero plot, Shakespeare\u2019s imagination was informed by Edmund Spenser\u2019s The Faerie Queene<\/em> and Ludovico Ariosto\u2019s Orlando Furioso<\/em>.\u00a0 The most proximate source influencing Ado<\/em> was Matteo Bandello\u2019s novella 22.2<\/sup> Bandello tells the story of Timbreo and Fenicia, which parallels the Claudio-Hero narrative.\u00a0 The source presented Shakespeare with an opportunity to revise and, in revising, to invent a new drama.\u00a0 A few examples, by no means exhaustive, will suffice to demonstrate the influence of Bandello upon Shakespeare during the composition of Ado<\/em>.\u00a0 First, Bandello\u2019s novella is set in 13th<\/sup> century Messina, and tells of Timbreo di Cardona, a knight inflamed with desire for Fenicia, daughter of Lionato de\u2019 Lionati, a gentleman in Messina; these characters in Bandello\u2019s story parallel Claudio\u2019s wooing of Hero, the daughter of Leonato in Ado<\/em>.\u00a0 Second, Timbreo offers a marriage proposal only after Fenicia refuses to sleep with him, and his social status far exceeds Fenicia\u2019s; Shakespeare\u2019s Claudio, on the other hand, stands to gain Leonato\u2019s estate through his marriage to Hero (1.1.275-7).\u00a0 Third, the challenger for Fenicia\u2019s love is Girondo Olerio Valenziano, Timbreo\u2019s close friend and fellow knight; Ado\u2019s<\/em> villain, Don John, is not a rival suitor but a rival brother.\u00a0 Fourth, Timbreo curtly breaks his engagement to Fenicia in a letter delivered to Lionati via his servant; Shakespeare increases the dramatic tension by having Claudio spurn Hero at the altar.\u00a0 In his revision of Bandello, Shakespeare altered many details, but novella 22 also contains much of the same thematic content as Ado<\/em>: both involve returning soldiers wooing young ladies; both address the vulnerability of women to male accusations of infidelity; and both explore the possibilities of love\u2019s endurance in the aftermath of such indictments. Among all of Shakespeare\u2019s revisions, however, the most notable difference is his invention of Benedick and Beatrice, two lovers sprung from the bard\u2019s imagination who offset Claudio and Hero\u2019s conventionally tragicomic plot with their witty discourse.3<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

Though at first Benedick and Beatrice\u2019s wit endears them to audiences of the play and not to one another, their witty speech also mitigates against the conventional credulity of Timbreo and Claudio, and it mitigates against Fenicia and Hero\u2019s vulnerability to male slander.\u00a0 Benedick and Beatrice\u2019s banter opens a liminal space in which their love may either flourish or falter, yet without the dire consequences of conventional wooing.\u00a0 As such, they are Shakespeare\u2019s linguistic reinvention of his source\u2019s stock characters. My reading of Ado<\/em>, then, will reveal Shakespeare at work, rebutting his sources\u2019 understanding of love by providing readers and audiences with an alternative pair of lovers whose wit allows them to develop through verbal play a more substantial relationship than either Timbreo-Fenicia or ClaudioHero.4<\/sup> \u201cShakespeare\u2019s language,\u201d writes Russ McDonald, \u201cfunctions as a symbolic register, an instrument for recording, transmitting, and magnifying the fictional world that the play represents\u201d (6).\u00a0 Shakespeare\u2019s linguistic puissance, which McDonald recognizes generally, is particularly relevant in the case of Beatrice and Benedick.\u00a0 Their banter is Shakespeare\u2019s \u201cinstrument for recording, transmitting, and magnifying\u201d his source text, Bandello\u2019s novella 22.\u00a0 He invents lovers whose linguistic skill allows them to avoid the received paradigm of mistaken perceptions and its dire consequences.\u00a0 Though I grant that Beatrice and Benedick do indeed misunderstand one another\u2019s jibes\u2014they have even failed in a previous relationship\u2014nevertheless, because the misperception is a linguistic one, the consequences are slight when compared to Claudio\u2019s wrenching defamation of Hero in 4.1.\u00a0 The function of Benedick and Beatrice\u2019s language, then, is to mitigate the shortcomings of Shakespeare\u2019s source characters (Timbreo and Fenicia) and their replication in Ado<\/em> (Claudio and Hero). Those shortcomings are the visual mode of their desire and the socially pervasive fears of cuckoldry and slander.<\/span><\/p>\n

Benedick and Beatrice\u2019s linguistic potential, however, must be actualized and refined by a communal act of witty speech, and their composition of sonnets ultimately refines their speech and commemorates their desire, assuring audiences of the play that their love will endure because of the authority of the written poetic word. Benedick and Beatrice\u2019s verbal play is Shakespeare\u2019s reinvention of desire.\u00a0 He refutes visual desire, offering instead a liminal space in which love can develop through speech. In Bandello\u2019s novella 22, Timbreo\u2019s love for Fenicia blooms after she \u201cbegan for her part to watch<\/em> him and bow discreetly to him,\u201d and Timbreo\u2019s love burgeons likewise: \u201cthe more he gazed<\/em> on her the more he felt his desire . . .\u201d (Bullough 113, my emphases).\u00a0 Claudio\u2019s desire for Hero is also visual, though he woos her indirectly via Don Pedro.\u00a0 \u201cIn mine eye,\u201d Claudio avows, \u201c[Hero] is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on\u201d (1.1.177-8).\u00a0 Their betrothal occurs before any speech, and after they are betrothed in 2.1, there is a full pause in which they are struck dumb with love.\u00a0 As I imagine the scene\u2019s performance, they gaze fixedly into one another\u2019s eyes during that moment:<\/span><\/p>\n

LEONATO Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes.\u00a0 His grace hath made the match, and all grace say amen to it.<\/span>
\n [PAUSE]<\/span>
\n BEATRICE \u00a0Speak, Count, \u2018tis your cue (2.1.277-80)<\/span><\/p>\n

When Beatrice snaps Claudio out of his love-induced hypnosis, his first words are an apology for his lack of words: \u201cSilence is the perfectest herald of joy; I were but little happy if I could say how much\u201d (2.1.281-2).\u00a0 As beautiful as this moment of rapture is, and although Claudio\u2019s remarks about a lover\u2019s inability to fully express his love ring true, Beatrice\u2019s prompting hits upon a very real problem in Claudio and Hero\u2019s relationship: visual attraction, even when it is a fixed gaze of mystically understood love, is beautiful only for a moment, but love must also be verbalized.\u00a0 Otherwise, the mode of desire\u2014sight\u2014can become the very reason why a relationship falters, as happens in Ado<\/em> and Bandello\u2019s novella.\u00a0 The malicious deceptions performed by Borachio (Ado<\/em>) and Girondo (novella 22) are visual, and both Claudio and Timbreo fall for the trick because of visual \u201cevidence\u201d that seems to prove the infidelity of their beloveds.<\/span><\/p>\n

Like Claudio and Timbreo, Benedick\u2019s desire for Beatrice is not without visual attraction. In fact, he maintains that her beauty far surpasses Hero\u2019s\u2014although his praise may be exaggerated because he is attempting to persuade Claudio not to marry Hero (1.1.180-2).\u00a0 Likewise, Beatrice indirectly acknowledges Benedick\u2019s handsomeness, even as she critiques his garrulity: \u201cHe were an excellent man that were made just in the midway between [Don John] and Benedick: the one is too like an image and says nothing, and the other too like my lady\u2019s eldest son, evermore tattling\u201d (2.1.6-9).\u00a0 But the main portion of Benedick and Beatrice\u2019s desire is verbal.\u00a0 This desire is Shakespeare\u2019s invention, a verbal flirtation between witty characters who mask their affection in euphuistic discourse. It stands in sharp contrast to the lover\u2019s gaze that silences all speech.\u00a0 The flirtation begins with the opening scene, before Benedick arrives in Messina.\u00a0 A messenger arrives with news of a recent military action, and Beatrice asks, \u201cI pray you, is Signor Mountanto<\/em> returned from the wars or no?\u201d\u00a0 (1.1.29-30, my emphasis).5<\/sup> Her enigmatic question is periphrastic, allowing her to inquire of Benedick without directly referring to him.\u00a0 It is ostensibly insulting to Benedick, which ensures that her question will not be regarded as a sign of affection, but despite its scornful tone Beatrice\u2019s inquiry is into Benedick\u2019s health.\u00a0 Is he still alive?\u00a0 If she really had no interest in Benedick at all, she would not have asked the question.\u00a0\u00a0 She uses the word \u201cmountanto\u201d in her jibe, which technically means an upward thrust in fencing.\u00a0 \u201dMountanto\u201d is thus a description of Benedick\u2019s whole personality; he is simultaneously marshal, sexual, and verbal, thrusting with sword, phallus, and wit.\u00a0 Upon<\/span><\/p>\n

Benedick\u2019s arrival in Messina, Beatrice fires the initial salvo in their war of insults, which continues her process of carefully veiling attraction and verbalizing desire. \u201cI wonder that you will still be talking, Signor Benedick,\u201d she exclaims, \u201cNobody marks you\u201d (1.1.114-115). Though Brian Vickers asserts in The Artistry of Shakespeare\u2019s Prose<\/em>, \u201cComment is not needed here,\u201d meaning, I assume, that readers can deduce the tone of Benedick and Beatrice\u2019s banter on their own (175), Joost Daalder\u2019s work regarding the \u201cpre-history\u201d of Beatrice and Benedick, a subject to which I will return later, actually forces one to carefully parse these opening lines and consider their implications.\u00a0 Beatrice\u2019s comment, which attempts to belittle the returning soldier, is laden with irony.\u00a0 She \u201cmarks\u201d Benedick in order to address him, thus exercising, even if subconsciously, the trope of antiphrasis<\/em>.\u00a0 Hence, Beatrice\u2019s comment, \u201cnobody marks you,\u201d becomes, \u201cI mark you.\u201d\u00a0 His response is equally telling.\u00a0 \u201cMy dear Lady Disdain!\u201d he exclaims in a mock greeting, \u201cAre you yet \/ living?\u201d (1.1.116-117). Benedick\u2019s greeting\u2014Lady Disdain\u2014recalls its parallel in Beatrice\u2019s \u201cSignor Mountanto.\u201d\u00a0 Disdain becomes his definition for Beatrice, even as he, too, indirectly acknowledges her by the figure of periphrasis<\/em>.\u00a0 Likewise, Benedick\u2019s scathing question, \u201cAre you yet living?\u201d contains beneath its surface a subtle recognition and delight in exchanging military combat for verbal combat with his most capable nemesis.\u00a0 Beatrice and Benedick\u2019s continuing banter in the following lines not only provides delight to audiences of Ado<\/em>, it functions as the verbal equivalent of Claudio and Hero\u2019s gaze.\u00a0 Despite the claims which both make to the contrary, Beatrice and Benedick complement one another because each can sound the depths of the other with the lead and line of repartee.\u00a0 Though the development of their love will require the wit that Don Pedro and the rest of the Messina community enact, both Benedick and Beatrice already take pleasure in their banter, for both continue to initiate it.\u00a0 There is a certain adolescent quality to this teasing, in which even the most vitriolic insult becomes a display of wit designed to attract the desire of the other.\u00a0 For Claudio and Timbreo, then, physical beauty is a sufficient cause for love, but Benedick and Beatrice\u2019s verbal play is Shakespeare\u2019s assertion that beauty is necessary but not sufficient.\u00a0 The advantage of this Shakespearean addition of verbal flirtation is that it allows both parties to slander one another without the dire consequences of Don John, Borachio, and Claudio\u2019s slander of Hero.<\/span><\/p>\n

By inventing Beatrice, a woman whose wit allows her both to penetrate the many male \u201cmasks\u201d throughout the play and to articulate her wit in the conventionally male manner of verbal play, Shakespeare\u2019s revision of Bandello also attenuates the pervading fear of infidelity found in the source tradition, which is transferred into Ado<\/em>.6<\/sup> Cuckoldry is a pervasive theme, as is the converse vulnerability of women to male slander.7<\/sup> Think, for instance, of Benedick\u2019s aversion to marriage or of Beatrice shouting, \u201cO that I were a man for his sake!\u201d in response to Claudio\u2019s defamation of Hero, which is the most striking instance of female vulnerability to male slander in the play (4.1.315).\u00a0 Scant evidence suffices to dupe Claudio, leaving Hero unprotected by a chivalric code of honor supposedly in place to protect women, but which actually requires male friends to inform one another of a lascivious woman and then to reject her completely. Hence, Don John can slander Hero in the pretended interest of Claudio\u2019s honor (3.2.104), and Claudio can reject her\u2014in front of her own father, no less\u2014without fear of repercussion (4.1.31).\u00a0 But the play asks its audience to contemplate a question about that code of honor: what happens when one\u2019s perception is skewed by lies or misinterpretations? \u00a0Males in the play can levy accusations of infidelity but women have little opportunity for rebuttal.\u00a0 Shakespeare\u2019s solution to Bandello\u2019s problem is Beatrice, a woman more than capable of engaging men on ground that is conventionally theirs\u2014slander.\u00a0 While Hero remains a victim of slander and deceit, Beatrice\u2019s wit allows her to level the playing field by slandering back, though within the acceptable confines of witty banter.\u00a0 She approximates herself socially to Benedick, engaging her wit in an asymptotic progression, a continual questioning of his veracity that leads to an increasingly accurate understanding of his character.\u00a0 Thus, while Russ McDonald rightly observes that Ado<\/em> \u201cexplores the human damage that language can do\u201d (122), I would add that Beatrice\u2019s verbal play, and the many benign fictions fabricated during the play, demonstrate that language can also prevent and even heal that human damage.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beatrice, then, is Shakespeare\u2019s revision of Fenicia and Hero, who cannot defend themselves against accusations of infidelity.\u00a0 A telling example of Beatrice\u2019s wit is her response to a Messenger\u2019s report of Benedick\u2019s return:<\/span><\/p>\n

He set up his bills<\/em> here in Messina and chal-<\/span>
\n lenged Cupid at the flight<\/em>; and my uncle\u2019s fool<\/em>, reading<\/span>
\n the challenge, subscribed for Cupid and challenged<\/span>
\n him at the bird-bolt<\/em>.\u00a0 I pray you, how many hath he<\/em><\/span>
\n killed and eaten in these wars<\/em>?\u00a0 But how many hath he<\/span>
\n killed?\u00a0 For indeed I promised to eat all of his killing.\u00a0 (1.1.37-42, my emphases)<\/span><\/p>\n

Beatrice\u2019s witty description, which compares military and romantic conquest, takes the form of a conceit<\/em>.\u00a0 In it, Benedick challenges Cupid to a game of \u201cflight,\u201d an archery contest.\u00a0 Her \u201cuncle\u2019s fool\u201d then stands in the place of Cupid and offers a different game, the \u201cbird-bolt,\u201d a fowling game with blunt-headed arrows.\u00a0 The mocking tone of Beatrice\u2019s insult seems clear, but just exactly what she means by this statement is polysemous.\u00a0 It is plausible, however, to interpret Benedick\u2019s \u201cbills\u201d and his challenge to \u201cCupid at the flight\u201d as an indicator of his reputation as a lady-killer, a \u201cgood soldier to a lady\u201d (1.1.51).\u00a0 One should then understand \u201cmy uncle\u2019s fool\u201d as Beatrice herself, who has accepted Benedick\u2019s challenge in the past, but who changes the game to \u201cthe bird-bolt.\u201d\u00a0 Fowl<\/strong>ing with blunt-headed arrows becomes foul<\/strong>ing with the taut bowstring of wit and the sharp arrows of insult.\u00a0 While Timbreo and Claudio act on their suppressed fears of cuckoldry, Beatrice\u2019s arsenal of verbal weapons allow a social reversal in which she<\/em> can investigate Benedick\u2019s constancy.\u00a0 Beatrice continues the interrogation with her question, \u201cHow many hath he killed and eaten in these wars?\u201d\u00a0 Her inquiry implicitly insults Benedick for lacking courage in his recent military combat, but \u201cthese wars\u201d also hint at Beatrice and Benedick\u2019s \u201cmerry war\u201d of words (1.1.58).8<\/sup> Readers and audiences of Ado<\/em> thus learn from the beginning of the \u201cskirmish,\u201d which opposes the rapier\u2019s wit of Benedick and the stabbing \u201cponiards\u201d of Beatrice, that their action is not the wooing of new lovers (as with Claudio and Hero) but the reconciliation of estranged ones (2.1.237).9<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

Benedick and Beatrice\u2019s backstory raises an important question: is wit actually an obstacle to Benedick and Beatrice\u2019s relationship?\u00a0 Don Pedro\u2019s benign deception, after all, leads Benedick and Beatrice to soften their vitriol and to perceive the other\u2019s as a fa\u00e7ade that conceals true love.\u00a0 What I have argued, however, is that Benedick and Beatrice\u2019s continual banter already contains, in latent form, the desire that Don Pedro\u2019s scheme\u2014itself an instance of witty verbal play\u2014actualizes later in the play.\u00a0 I read Benedick and Beatrice\u2019s response to Don Pedro\u2019s ruse, their surprisingly instantaneous requital, as indicative of an attraction that began during what Daalder refers to as their \u201cpre-history,\u201d faltered because of some unknown conflict, and continued in latent form until the moment of their overhearing in 2.3 and 3.2.\u00a0 After all, if Benedick and Beatrice really despised one another, then learning of the other\u2019s love would result in disgust, not requital.\u00a0 Furthermore, I read Benedick and Beatrice\u2019s banter primarily as a Shakespearean invention that revises the fears of infidelity and slander found in Bandello; wit is then not an obstacle but a much-needed defense against false accusations and false love.\u00a0 Don Pedro\u2019s ruse, therefore, never overcomes wit, since Benedick and Beatrice remain witty to the end of the play.\u00a0 Their final words to one another illustrate the point:<\/span><\/p>\n

BENEDICK \u00a0\u00a0 A miracle!\u00a0 Here\u2019s our own hands against our<\/span>
\n hearts.\u00a0 Come, I will have thee, but by this light I take<\/span>
\n thee for pity.<\/span>
\n BEATRICE\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I would not deny you, but by this good day I<\/span>
\n yield upon great persuasion \u2013 and partly to save your<\/span>
\n life, for I was told you were in a consumption<\/span>
\n (5.4.91-96)<\/span><\/p>\n

I grant that these teases have been purified of their former vitriol, but they are nonetheless instances of verbal play, proof that wit need not be purged for Benedick and Beatrice to marry and, as I read the play, that banter is preferable to the desire of the eye.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even Benedick and Beatrice\u2019s earlier vitriol, however, can be understood in light of Shakespeare\u2019s revision of Bandello.\u00a0 Vitriol allows them to create situations of imagined infidelity and slander that substitute for the fears and slanders of the source tradition.\u00a0 For example, both Benedick and Beatrice express vitriolic wit in 2.1 during the masquerade scene.\u00a0 Their conversation begins in medias res<\/em>, with Benedick masked:<\/span><\/p>\n

BEATRICE \u00a0\u00a0 Will you not tell me who told you so<\/span>
\n BENEDICK \u00a0\u00a0 No, you shall pardon me.<\/span>
\n BEATRICE \u00a0\u00a0 Not will you nor tell me who you are?<\/span>
\n BENEDICK \u00a0\u00a0 Not now.<\/span>
\n BEATRICE \u00a0\u00a0 That I was disdainful<\/em> and that I had my good wit out of the Hundred Merry Tales<\/em> \u2013 well, this was Signor Benedick that said So. (2.1.113-19, my emphasis)<\/span><\/p>\n

Without revealing his identity, Benedick acts as messenger of insults from an ostensibly anonymous source.\u00a0 He is, of course, the supplier of these invectives.\u00a0 His jabs continue earlier insults upon Beatrice\u2019s character and intelligence.\u00a0 Beatrice is \u201cdisdainful,\u201d echoing the earlier greeting, \u201cmy dear Lady Disdain\u201d (1.1.116).\u00a0 She is also unoriginal.\u00a0 What others perceive as intelligent retorts Benedick now declares forged from a collection of kitsch anecdotes\u2014the Hundred Merry Tales<\/em>.\u00a0 Benedick\u2019s intention is that his mask should shield him from Beatrice\u2019s rebuttal, but her parry and counter-thrust inverts what would otherwise be female vulnerability to male slander and leaves him<\/em> vulnerable to her caustic frankness because her words seem to be her real opinion of him. Benedick thinks that his identity is unknown to Beatrice and is deliberately attempting to goad her.\u00a0 What Beatrice knows is less obvious.\u00a0 One could argue that Beatrice does not recognize Benedick, in which case her invective is genuine.\u00a0 This reading would understand Beatrice as a self-consciously and deliberately vicious character, a shrew in need of taming.\u00a0 I do not find the argument persuasive, however, because I read Beatrice\u2019s invective as masking real attraction to Benedick throughout the play, and I also read her as perceptive enough not to be fooled by Benedick\u2019s trick.\u00a0 She calls Benedick \u201cthe prince\u2019s jester, a very dull fool\u201d (2.1.125).\u00a0 In other words, Benedick is amusing but not significant.\u00a0 Further, Beatrice executes her own \u201cjade\u2019s trick\u201d by undercutting any retort Benedick might make in the lines, \u201cHe\u2019ll but break a comparison or two on me, which, peradventure not marked, or not laughed at, strikes him into melancholy . . .\u201d (2.1.133-5).\u00a0 Any reply Benedick might make only serves to prove Beatrice\u2019s prediction correct.\u00a0 Though Benedick seems to exit unscathed, Beatrice\u2019s words penetrate his mask and cut him to the heart, since he does not know that Beatrice knew his identity.\u00a0 His response is to blame Beatrice\u2019s opinion upon her \u201cbitter disposition\u201d (2.1.190).\u00a0 Though Beatrice\u2019s words vex Benedick deeply, readers must also be aware of the relative mildness of such invectives in comparison with the utter betrayal felt by Claudio and Timbreo.\u00a0 Insults sting, but they leave one\u2019s honor intact.\u00a0 The masked exchange between Beatrice and Benedick also reveals the strength of Beatrice when compared to Hero or Fenicia.\u00a0 Although both Hero and Fenicia are chaste, beautiful, and noble, neither displays the same ability to vie with men on the field of wit.\u00a0 Beatrice\u2019s wit thus allows her to interrogate Benedick as a potential slanderer and to demonstrate her ability to counter accusation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Shakespeare\u2019s revision of Bandello opens the potential for more than merely mitigating the shortcomings of the conventional desire found in his sources.\u00a0 His addition of verbal play offers the potential for a resilient love that will continue to withstand fears, slanders, and mistaken perceptions because that verbal play can be memorialized in poetry.\u00a0 The cooperation of the community in the witty ruse planned by Don Pedro in scenes 2.3 and 3.1 refines Benedick and Beatrice\u2019s vitriol, allowing them to express their love in poetry.\u00a0 When Beatrice hears of Benedick\u2019s love, her joyful exclamation in verse quickly follows:<\/span><\/p>\n

HERO If it prove so, then loving goes by haps,<\/span>
\n Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.<\/span>
\n BEATRICE What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?<\/span>
\n Stand I condemned for pride and scorn so much<\/span>
\n Contempt, farewell, and maiden pride, adieu!<\/span>
\n No glory lives behind the back of such.<\/span>
\n And Benedick, love on; I will requite thee,<\/span>
\n Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand.<\/span>
\n If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee<\/span>
\n To bind our loves up in a holy band;<\/span>
\n For others say thou dost deserve, and I<\/span>
\n Believe it better than reportingly.\u00a0\u00a0 (3.1.111-22)<\/span><\/p>\n

The lines are nearly a sonnet.10<\/sup> The meter is iambic pentameter, and lines 113-20 resemble two quatrains, followed by a couplet in lines 121-22.\u00a0 Though not quite a sonnet, the shift from prose to verse reflects the conversion of Beatrice from \u201cLady Disdain\u201d (1.1.116) to \u201cFair Beatrice\u201d\u00a0(2.3.240). As McDonald observes, \u201cover 70 percent of Much Ado About Nothing<\/em> is written in prose,\u201d which indicates that Shakespeare likely invented Beatrice\u2019s sonnet-like exclamation as a moment of meaningful juxtaposition (114).\u00a0 Beatrice\u2019s tongue, at this moment of extemporaneous utterance, becomes a source of blessing, a fount of poetry.11<\/sup> Similarly, though not with the same degree of success, Benedick attempts to compose a sonnet for Beatrice in 5.2, and the sonnets exchanged in 5.4 are a final and public confirmation of their love for one another.\u00a0 Thus, Beatrice and Benedick not only mitigate the shortcomings found in Shakespeare\u2019s sources, but their own verbal play undergoes a refinement.\u00a0 The spoken word of wit, though a corrective to the desire of the eye, must ultimately become the written word of poetry.\u00a0 What is true of Benedick and Beatrice\u2014that the written word refines their speech\u2014permeates the play.\u00a0 The conversation overheard by the night watch in 3.3 must be written during the deposition in 4.2 to condemn Borachio and Don John; Claudio must write an epitaph that publicly vindicates Hero and reveals her accusers as \u201cslanderous\u201d (5.3.3); and even Dogberry\u2019s comic desire to be \u201cwrit down an ass\u201d illustrate the movement in the play toward the written word as the most reliable arbiter of fidelity. This is a Shakespearean invention, a revision of Bandello\u2019s novella that asserts the centrality of language\u2014with poetry as its highest and most effective form\u2014as a sign and seal of fidelity, constancy, and love.\u00a0 Hence, Shakespeare succeeds in making readers and audiences believe that Benedick and Beatrice share a love that will endure because it has been visually perceived, verbally expressed, and poetically written.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Notes<\/span><\/p>\n

1. I wish to thank my teacher, Dr. Scott Crider, for providing me with the initial occasion for this essay and for his invaluable comments.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. See Bullough, 112-34.\u00a0 Bullough\u2019s text, which I used during my research for this essay, is his own translation.\u00a0 It is possible though, that Shakespeare knew Italian well enough to read Bandello and Ariosto.\u00a0 See Cairncross.<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Beatrice and Benedick are traditionally understood to be an original Shakespearean invention.\u00a0 See Gaw.<\/span><\/p>\n

4. For an excellent survey of Shakespeare\u2019s general reading habits, see Robert Miola, Shakespeare\u2019s Reading<\/em> (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) 152-169.\u00a0 For more specific information regarding Ado<\/em>, see Charles Tyler Prouty, The Sources of <\/em>Much Ado About Nothing: A Critical Study, Together with the Text of Peter Beverley\u2019s Ariodanto and Ieneura<\/em>,\u00a0 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950).<\/span><\/p>\n

5. All quotations come from the Arden 3rdedition of the play.<\/span><\/p>\n

6. Vickers notes that the large proportion of puns at the beginning of the play \u201cestablishes a norm against which Beatrice\u2019s wit stands out\u201d (174).<\/span><\/p>\n

7. For more on cuckoldry in Ado<\/em>, see McEachern, 43-50.<\/span><\/p>\n

8. It may also be relevant that McDonald writes, \u201cthe give and take of dialogue often acts as a substitute for the sexual coupling promised at the end of most comedies\u201d (176).<\/span><\/p>\n

9. See Daalder.<\/span><\/p>\n

10. McEachern, 227.<\/span><\/p>\n

11. McEachern notes that \u201cBenedick\u201d means he who is blessed, while \u201cBeatrice\u201d means one who blesses 147-148<\/span><\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/span><\/p>\n

Bullough, Geoffrey. Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Vol. 2. New York: Columbia University Press, 1958.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cairncross, Andrew S. \u201cShakespeare and Ariosto: Much Ado About\u00a0<\/em>Nothing, King Lear<\/em>, and Othello<\/em>.\u201d Renaissance Quarterly<\/em> 29.2\u00a0(1976): 178-182.<\/span><\/p>\n

Daalder, Joost. \u201cThe \u2018Pre-History\u2019 of Beatrice and Benedick.\u201d English\u00a0<\/em>Studies<\/em> 85.6 (2004): 520-527.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gaw, Allison. \u201cIs Shakespeare\u2019s Much Ado<\/em> a Revised Earlier Play?.\u201d\u00a0PMLA 50.3 (1935): 715-738.<\/span><\/p>\n

McDonald, Russ. Shakespeare and the Arts of Language<\/em>.\u00a0 New York:\u00a0Oxford University Press, 2001.<\/span><\/p>\n

McEachern, Claire. Introduction. Much Ado About Nothing<\/em>. By William\u00a0Shakespeare. London: Arden Shakespeare, 2006.<\/span><\/p>\n

Miola, Robert S. Shakespeare\u2019s Reading<\/em>. New York: Oxford University\u00a0Press, 2000.<\/span><\/p>\n

Prouty, Charles Tyler.\u00a0 The Sources of <\/em>Much Ado About Nothing: A\u00a0<\/em>Critical Study, Together with the Text of Peter Beverley\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>Ariodanto and Ieneura<\/em>.\u00a0 New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950.<\/span><\/p>\n

Shakespeare, William.\u00a0 Much Ado About Nothing<\/em>. Ed. Claire McEachern.\u00a0London: Arden Shakespeare, 2006.<\/span><\/p>\n

Vickers, Brian.\u00a0 The Artistry of Shakespeare\u2019s Prose<\/em>.\u00a0 New York: Methuen\u00a0& Co, 1979.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul F. Weinhold,\u00a0University of Dallas Shakespeare consulted many sources as he composed Much Ado About Nothing (Ado), a comedy that follows the wooing of two pairs of lovers.1 For the Claudio-Hero plot, Shakespeare\u2019s imagination was informed by Edmund Spenser\u2019s The Faerie Queene and Ludovico Ariosto\u2019s Orlando Furioso.\u00a0 The most proximate source influencing Ado was Matteo […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1384,"featured_media":0,"parent":54,"menu_order":8,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"full-width-page.php","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-250","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ovsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ovsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ovsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ovsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1384"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ovsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ovsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":461,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ovsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/250\/revisions\/461"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ovsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/54"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ovsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}