Oxford School Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing

Shakespeare, William

ISBN 10: 0198328729 ISBN 13: 9780198328728

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2009

Synopsis

Oxford School Shakespeare is an acclaimed edition especially designed for students, with accessible on-page notes and explanatory illustrations, clear background information, and rigorous but accessible scholarly credentials. Much AdoAbout Nothing is a popular text for study by secondary students the world over. This edition includes illustrations, preliminary notes, reading lists (including websites) and classroom notes.
This title is suitable for all exam boards and for the most recent GCSE specifications.

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:

A lovely publication, great explanations, notes and images. (4 star Amazon review)

About this edition

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0198328729
• ISBN 13: 9780198328728
• Binding: Pocket Book
• Number of pages: 160