English: Much Ado About Nothing

Count Claudio falls in love with Hero, the daughter of his host. Hero's cousin Beatrice (a confirmed spinster) and Benedict (an eternal bachelor) are each duped into believing the other is in love with them. Claudio is deceived by a malicious plot and denounces Hero as unchaste before they marry. She faints and is believed dead, but recovers to be proved innocent by a chance discovery. Benedict wins Beatrice’s love defending her cousin’s honour, and to his surprise, Claudio is reunited with Hero, who he believed dead. (www.shakespeare.org.uk).

Much Ado About Nothing was written in 1598, but the story takes place sometime around the 16th century during the Italian Wars in Messina, Italy. Shakespeare’s characters thus come from many different places in Europe and Italy, including Aragon, Padua, and Florence. Although Much Ado About Nothing has romantic elements which might lead some to call it a romance, it is generally considered a comedy, since its portrayal of love and marriage is humorous and outlandish rather than serious. Elizabethan audiences would have found Shakespeare’s meditations on love and court politics hilarious, because he pokes fun at the traditions and expectations surrounding love and marriage during his time. (www.owleyes.org). 

Shakespeare’s father was a glove-maker, and Shakespeare received no more than a grammar school education. He married Anne Hathaway in 1582, but left his family behind around 1590 and moved to London, where he became an actor and playwright. He was an immediate success: Shakespeare soon became the most popular playwright of the day as well as a part-owner of the Globe Theater. His theater troupe was adopted by King James as the King’s Men in 1603. Shakespeare retired as a rich and prominent man to Stratford-upon-Avon in 1613, and died three years later.