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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Almost every nineteenth-century critic has declared one or more of the leading characters of Much Ado in some respects unconvincing or at least distasteful. Chambers, moreover, finds in the play as a whole “inconsistency of purpose” and “the chiaroscuro of melodrama”; and Schücking asks why Shakespeare makes his characters “behave as irrationally” as do the characters in Much Ado. Lawrence explains the apparent inconsistencies of the plot as the outcome of Shakespeare's close adherence to the old popular tale that was his ultimate source; but in Much Ado Shakespeare did make bold departures from Bandello and Belleforest in the Hero-Claudio romance, and, furthermore, replaced two insipid minor characters with the vigorous Benedick and the glib and pungent Beatrice. Stoll explains these difficulties rather as the outcome of dramatic convention, and declares that Hero's public repudiation “is a matter of Elizabethan art and taste rather than of character”; but Stoll neither makes clear how Elizabethan “art” demanded the interpolation of such an incident, nor cites similar interpolations in other plays. These two explanations, therefore, seem hardly satisfactory, and this study proposes to examine the problem in the light of Elizabethan culture and ideals. Why is Claudio, though clearly intended as a hero, so mercenary in his wooing, so apparently malicious in publicly defaming Hero, and so fickle in accepting another bride? Why does Hero passively accept such treatment?
1 See Much Ado, Furness' variorum edition, “English Criticism,” pp. 350, 362.
2 E. K. Chambers, Shakespeare: A Survey (New York, 1926), p. 128.
3 W. W. Lawrence, Shakespeare's Problem Comedies (New York, 1931), p. 72.
4 Ibid., p. 69.
5 Much Ado, ed. cit., 311–329.—These changes occur in both sources: Hero and Claudio converse together before marriage; Claudio does not make attempts on his love's honor; Hero accepts a proposal of marriage; and she is defamed publicly.
6 E. Stoll, Shakespeare Studies (New York, 1927), pp. 72, 101.
7 Swetman, The Arraignment of Lewd, Idle, Froward, and Inconstant Women (London, 1615), p. 53.
8 William Heale, An Apologie for Women (London, 1609), p. 50.
9 Greene, Life and Works of Robert Greene, iii (London, 1587), pp. 10, 11.
10 Salter, A Mirrhor Mete for all Mothers, etc., (London, 1579), f. Biiij(r).
11 Braithwait, The English Gentlewoman (London, 1631), 50.
12 Ibid., 10.
13 Hannay, A Happy Husband, “The Good Wife” (London, 1618), B8v.
14 Swetman, op. cit., pp. 43, 49.
15 Markham, The English Huswife (London, 1615), p. 344.
16 Gouge, Domesticali Duties, Worke (London, 1627), p. 151.
17 Markham, op. cit., p. 4.
18 Overbury, A Wife (London, 1614), pp. 11, 175.
19 Powell, English Domestic Relations (New York, 1917), p. 176.
20 Greene, op. cit., p. 72.
21 See J. W. Draper, “The Theme of Timon of Athens,” forthcoming in MLR. He finds this interest in a considerable dowry to be a natural result of the economic pressure of the age.
22 Gouge, op. cit., p. 447.
23 Perbius, A Commentarie upon the Epistle to the Galatians (London, 1612–1613), iii.
24 Much Ado, ed. cit., ii, i, 284–286.
25 Ibid., ii, i, 50.
26 Ibid., ii, i, 62, 63.
27 Ibid., ii, i, 19, 20.
28 Ibid., iii, i, 1–122.
29 Ibid., iii, iv, 11.
30 Ibid., ii, i, 50.
31 Ibid., ii, i, 6, 7.
32 Ibid., ii, i, 8.
33 J. W. Draper, “Desdemona: A Compound of Two Cultures,” Rev. Litt. Comp., xiii, 337 et seq.
34 Thomas Heywood, History Concerning Women (London, 1624), p. 287.
35 Barnabe Rich, The Excellency of Good Women (London, 1613), p. 37.
36 Ibid., p. 18.
37 Swetman, op. cit., pp. 43, 49.
36 Powell, op. cit., pp. 151–3.
39 Donne, “Go and Catch a Falling Star.”
40 Rich, op. cit., p. 16.
41 Swetman, op. cit., p. 53.
42 Ibid., p. 9.
43 A Discourse of the Married and the Single Life (London, 1621).
44 Much Ado, ed. cit., i, i, 232–239.
45 Ibid., i, i, 195, 196.
46 Ibid., ii, iii, 230.
47 Ibid., Sources, pp. 314–316; 328.
48 Ibid., i, iii, 43.
49 Ibid., i, i, 285.
50 Ibid., i, i, 286.
51 Ibid., v, i, 299.
52 Powell, op. cit., p. 148.
53 A Pattern of Catechistical Doctrine and other minor works of Lancelot Andrewes (Oxford, 1846), p. 186.
54 J. W. Draper, “Honest Iago,” PMLA, xlv, 731.
55 Ibid., p. 730.
56 Richard Braithwait, Essaies (London, 1640), p. 127.
57 Powell, op. cit., p. 204; and Painter, Palace of Pleasure, especially nos. 58, 81.
58 Much Ado, ed. cit., iv, i, 148, 149.
59 Ibid., iv, i, 122.
60 Ibid., iv, i, 132–135. See Cymbeline, iii, iv, 20–30.
61 Ibid., Sources, pp. 315, 328.
62 Ibid., ii, i, 287, et al.
63 Ibid., iv, i, 68.
64 Ibid., v, i, 93.
65 Throughout the courtship and defamation, Don Pedro implies his youth by anticipating his very thoughts and by furnishing the courage and the initative of a maturer mind (ed. cit., i, i, 282–320; iii, ii, 116, 117; iv, i, 31); Don John caustically rates him as a “young start-up (i, iii, 61) and a very ”forward March-chick“ (i, iii, 52); Benedick casually calls him ”Boy“ and ”young Claudio,“ and later taunts him as ”Lord Lack-Beard“ (v, i, 200); Leonato, too, admits his ”May of youth and bloom of lustihood“ (v, i, 76).
66 Gouge, op. cit., p. 105.
67 Chambers, op. cit., p. 134.
68 Pauline Shortridge, The Taming of The Shrew, A Comedy of Manners, forthcoming.
