SOURCE: Auden, W. H. “Much Ado About Nothing.” In W. H. Auden: Lectures on Shakespeare, reconstructed and edited by Arthur Kirsch, pp. 113-23. Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000.
In the following reconstructed lecture, originally delivered in 1946, Auden discusses how Shakespeare kept Much Ado about Nothing's tragic subplot—the conspiracy of Don John—from overshadowing the play's comic main plot: the romantic duel of wits between Beatrice and Benedick.
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