SOURCE: Roberts, Jeanne Addison. “Strategies of Delay in Shakespeare's Comedies: What the Much Ado Is Really About.” In Renaissance Papers, 1987, edited by Dale B. J. Randall and Joseph A. Porter, pp. 95-102. Durham N.C.: The Southeastern Renaissance Conference, 1987.
In the following essay, Roberts examines Shakespeare's use of obstacles and delay in Much Ado about Nothing and his other comedies, and contends that the delays “provide audiences with the pleasant anxieties of sustained anticipation.”
