by Alex Pitsillos

Created on: December 04, 2008

With specific reference to Act 1 Scene 1, Act 2 Scene 1, Act 3 Scene 1 and Act 4 Scene 1, comparing a contemporary audience's reaction to Beatrice to that of a Shakespearian audience.

Much Ado About Nothing was written in 1598 and was very popular at that time. It was written around the middle of Shakespeare's career when he was already a successful comedy playwright after writing such plays as A Midsummer Nights Dream.

Much ado follows two pairs of lovers, Hero and Claudio whose relationship struggles throughout the main body of the play due to the trickery of Don John. The second couple is Beatrice and Benedick whose love-hate relationship makes up most of the comedy and wit incorporated into the play.

Much ado conforms to many conventions of a Shakespearian comedy such as they usually involve unmarried couples getting married. In Much ado Hero and Claudio get married, as do Beatrice and Benedick. The convention of struggle of young lovers is also evident in Hero and Claudio's relationship and unification and separation is a convention followed by the relationship of Benedick and Beatrice.

However there are some conventions that it doesn't follow, for example, Much Ado is character driven not plot driven. This means that the play is watched to find out what happens to the characters and not what happens in the plot. In Much Ado Beatrice is a very strong female character and she stays strong throughout the whole play, this is very unusual to see in Shakespeare's work as in his plays strong female characters are generally tamed, an example of when is Kate in The Taming Of The Shrew. It would also be unusual for the audience to see a strong female character in Elizabethan times as typically Elizabethan women were not strong but more dutiful and dependant on men.

A Shakespearian audience's initial reaction to Beatrice would be quite disapproving as she openly insults a respectable male character, I pray you, how many hath he kill'd and / eaten in these wars? But how many hath he kill'd? for / indeed I promised to eat all his killing.' Beatrice is openly insulting Benedick's masculinity by claiming that he cannot kill and therefore that he is not strong and brave, both traits that men were supposed to have at that time. Leonato then goes on to say Faith niece you tax Signior Benedick too much'. Leonato explicitly disapproves of Beatrice insulting Benedick; this justifies the audience's disapproval as Leonato is a respected character in the play.

However a modern audience

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