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Like all of Shakespeare's comedies, this is a play about lovers, and about love itself. But in this play in particular, the question of how love fits into marriage is at the heart of the drama. Characters often discuss the question of what would make someone a good wife or a good husband, and Shakespeare has fun with some of the ideas common to the Elizabethan period about what made a marriage work. Don Pedro, the prince of Messina, says that Beatrice would make an "excellent wife" for Benedick, to which her uncle Leonato responds by saying "if they were but a week married they would talk themselves mad". Benedick says that he refuses to marry, precisely because no wife can live up to the ideal of marriage. Beatrice, likewise, expresses her opposition to marriage in the abstract. Claudio, on the other hand, despite wanting to be married to Hero, is tricked into rejecting her by the evil scheme of Don Pedro's brother, Don John. He convinces him that Hero does not live up to that ideal, and that she is already being unfaithful. In all cases, what we expect of marriage becomes itself the obstacle to love. Despite these principles, however, all of the lovers are overcome by love itself. They all change in order to be married, and it is this ability that love has to change us that Shakespeare's play celebrates.

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One reason marriage might be an obstacle to love in the play, is that marriage is about power. Men's power over women, or at least their desire for it, distorts the relationships we see throughout. Beatrice, who is a strong and witty woman, understandably does not want to give up her independence, but marriage demands obedience. At one point she jokes about her worries by punning on the biblical idea that "men", as in all humans, are dust. "Would it not grieve a woman to be over-mastered with a piece of valiant dust?" she asks, pointing out the arrogance of men who seek to control women. And indeed, that is what they do in the play. Don John's manipulations, which almost break up Hero and Claudio's marriage, have nothing to do with Hero herself, and are merely a way of getting back at his brother, Don Pedro, who he hates. Women to him are like a currency to be used in a male power game. Don Pedro himself wants to bring people together and be a "god of love" because he enjoys the power. Benedick, meanwhile, constantly expresses misogynisticStrong and deeply ingrained prejudice against women.  attitudes. He explains his unwillingness to marry by referring to the unreliability of women. The things he says were common in the rhetoricThe art of persuasion. of the time, and could be found in many other RenaissanceThe "rebirth" of Western learning began in the late 15th century, as European scholars rediscovered ancient manuscripts and began to make developments in science and art. texts. The 16^th Century, like much of history, was a time of anxiety about gender and the roles of women. Part of the problem of the play is that the men cast women in certain roles and then fail to see them as people, at least until love overcomes them.

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The 18th Century English critic Samuel Johnson once wrote of Shakespeare that there "is no image which our author appears so fond of as that of a cuckold's horns". These horns, which symbolised a husband whose wife was unfaithful to him, appear throughout Much Ado about Nothing. Benedick, when he explains why he refuses to marry, says that they would have to "pluck off the bull's horns and set them in my forehead", the moment that he does marry. To marry, for him, is to be deceived, and to make oneself a "fool", i.e someone who cannot see the truth. The drama is driven by the question of trust, and especially of trust in marital fidelity. Hero is accused of betraying her husband with Borachio, the evil servant of Don John. And it is a lack of trust in a wife specifically that is held up as the greatest failing in this play, as in Othello, a tragedy that resembles Much Ado about Nothing in all but the happy ending. Trust is what Claudio shows when he agrees to marry another woman, after it is claimed that Hero has died. And Shakespeare seems to suggest that love requires a leap of faith, we have to trust one another. It is when we do not trust others that we can be deceived by "plain-dealing villains" like Don John.

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Beatrice and Benedick's "skirmish of wit" is what appeals to playgoers. "Does not my wit become [ie suit] me rarely," Beatrice asks, and the answer is a complicated one. In the Renaissance, a woman's wit was not necessarily a good thing. Many texts associate women's ability with words with promiscuityHaving many sexual partners., contrasting it with the shyness and modesty they ought to demonstrate. And yet here, Shakespeare shows us the appeal of words, and of wit. Benedick, speaking to Beatrice in disguise, compares talking to her to fighting an entire army. "She speaks poniardsA historical term for a small, thin dagger., and every word stabs," he says. And this is not why he does not love her, but why he does. Benedick's wit, meanwhile, which Beatrice says is spent on "devising impossible slanders", i.e. extravagant lies, also makes him a compelling character to her. However, both of them need to set their desire to be right aside in order to actually fall in love. Don Pedro is able to trick them into revealing their feelings for one another, and this demonstrates that they slightly overvalue their wit. Neither is willing to seem like a fool. But Shakespeare suggests that love requires a little foolishness.

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Much Ado About Nothing's characters are constantly lying, assuming identities, and manipulating others. To make a big thing of nothing is, on one level, to make a mistake, and that is what Claudio does when he overinterprets what happens at Hero's window. It is also what Beatrice and Benedick do when they fall in love as a result of overhearing false rumours of each other's confessions. In the 1600s, the word "nothing" was pronounced the same way as "noting", and the play is full of people noting others' actions, and trying to make sense of them, unsure about whether or not they have made a mistake. The term "nothing" was also Elizabethan slang for female genitalia, and there is a way to read the play as suggesting that sexual desire is a silly cause for so much trouble. But the question of how and what we notice, and what is real or silly, is an important one, raised by the fact that the characters are in love. Disguises in the play help people to tell truths, too. Appearances in the play are a kind of reality. Even if they can mislead, they have a life of their own, and they are worth noting.

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Elaborate - Complicated.

Misogynistic - Strong and deeply ingrained prejudice against women. 

Rhetoric - The art of persuasion.

Renaissance - The "rebirth" of Western learning began in the late 15th century, as European scholars rediscovered ancient manuscripts and began to make developments in science and art.

- Someone who is important due to their rank or job.

Promiscuity - Having many sexual partners.

Poniards - A historical term for a small, thin dagger.