Much Ado About Nothing is a Shakespearean comedy, and a joyous one at that. It is full of love, music, trickery and merry-making. However, all Shakespearean comedies also have an element of tragedy, or the potential to turn into one. It is important that the examiner knows from your essays that you understand the conventions of comedy, as this is a valuable – and sophisticated – understanding of the writer’s craft and methods.
Shakespearean comedies usually consist of:
- Love and Marriage: Comedies generally tend to have love and marriage as a central theme:
- Typically, weddings are seen as symbols of happiness and new beginnings, which Shakespeare deemed crucial enough to represent in multiple marriages in some of his plays
- Mistaken Identity and Misconception: Shakespearean comedies often derive humour from the misunderstandings and misinterpretations of characters:
- Shakespeare uses dramatic irony – in which the audience is aware of things that the characters are not – for comic effect
- Characters often impersonate someone, or are mistaken for someone else
- In addition, wordplay adds to the confusions and misunderstandings
- Fools: The presence of “fools” in Shakespeare’s comedies allows for parody, further misunderstandings or, in the case of Much Ado About Nothing, inadvertent resolution
- Happy Ending: All Shakespearean comedies have happy endings, with at least one marriage:
- The happy resolution in Much Ado About Nothing is represented by dancing