BookRags.com Literature Guides Literature Guides Criticism/Essays Criticism/Essays Biographies Biographies My Bibliography Periodic Table U.S. Presidents Shakespeare Sonnet Shake-Up
Research Anything:        
History | Encyclopedias | Films | News | Create a Bibliography | More... Login | Register | Help


Much Ado about Nothing Study Guide

Print-Friendly  Order the PDF version  Order the RTF version
by William Shakespeare
About 195 pages (58,601 words)
Much Ado About Nothing Summary

Bookmark and Share

Character Studies

Beatrice

Scholars have often emphasized that Shakespeare deliberately introduces the sparring mockers, Beatrice and Benedick, before the pallid romantics, Hero and Claudio. Of the first pair, Beatrice appears first and sets the tone for what is to follow. She is any man's match ill a war of wit, but knows how to restrain her words in the presence of simple, harmless, and unimaginative men like Don Pedro's Messenger. (Wit, in comedies from the day of Shakespeare through the eighteenth century, means the ability of a person to discern similarities in meaning between like-sounding words and phrases, and then to craft a quick reply in which this connection is made evident.) The impression is given that Beatrice and Benedick have a history together of some sort; perhaps they were at one time interested in each other.....

This is a free excerpt of 135 words. This section contains 1,303 words. This study guide contains 58,601 words (approx. 195 pages at 300 words per page).

Read the rest of this Literature Guide with our Much Ado about Nothing Access Pass.

Copyrights
Much Ado about Nothing from BookRags and Gale's For Students Series. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.

Join BookRagslearn moreJoin BookRags


About BookRags | Customer Service | Report an Error | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy