Much Ado About Nothing (Wordsworth Classics) - Softcover

Shakespeare, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853262544 ISBN 13: 9781853262548

Publisher: Wordsworth Editions, 1995

Synopsis

This Wordsworth Edition has been Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex.

The Wordsworth Classics' Shakespeare Series presents a newly-edited sequence of William Shakespeare's works. The textual editing takes account of recent scholarship while giving the material a careful reappraisal.

Much Ado About Nothing has long been celebrated as one of Shakespeare's most popular comedies. The central relationship, between Benedick and Beatrice, is wittily combative until love prevails. Broader comedy is provided by Dogberry, Verges and the watchmen. The drama ranges between the destructively sinister and the lyrically romantic, giving the whole a complex and sometimes problematic character. Numerous revivals, in the theatre and on screen, have displayed the lively variety and interpretative openness of this engaging comedy.

About this title

Review:

Like Love's Labour's Lost, Much Ado about Nothing shows Shakespeare moving into a more complex and darker terrain through his exploration of an apparently harmless comical romance. The play revolves around the adventures of the two gallants Claudio and Benedick at the court of Sicily. Claudio falls in love with the governor's daughter Hero, and is eager for his more misanthropic friend Benedick to also find love. Benedick is introduced to the fiery, independent Beatrice, and sparks soon fly as they banter with each other in a more wittier version of Kate and Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew. Beatrice has some wonderful ripostes to marriage asking why should a woman marry "a clod of wayward marl", whilst Benedick grumbles that "She speaks poniards and every word stabs". Meanwhile, the jealous Don John convinces Claudio that Hero has in fact been unfaithful to him. When Claudio rejects Hero on their wedding day, she faints and is taken for dead. In the hectic final scenes the play moves towards reconciliation between Claudio and Hero, and the tentative admission of the love between Benedick and Beatrice. Famously filmed by Kenneth Branagh in the Tuscan countryside with a cast that included Keanu Reeves, Much Ado about Nothing remains one of Shakespeare's most successful comedies. --Jerry Brotton.

Review:

"Claire McEachern's revised edition of Much Ado About Nothing updates the original introductory material with incisive discussions of gender dynamics, formal and structural characteristics, and stage history." - Studies in English Literature 1500-1900

About this edition

• Publisher: Wordsworth Editions
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 1853262544
• ISBN 13: 9781853262548
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 144
• Editor: Watts M.A. Ph.D. Professor Cedric