Much Ado About Nothing Hyperlinks

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Much Ado About NothingHyperlinks

• A PowerPoint Presentation

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Contents

• Different Kinds of Comedy
• Different Kinds of Comedy
• Summaries Act 1
• Summaries Act 1 Continued
• Summaries Act 2
• Summaries Act 2 Continued
• Summaries Act 3
• Summaries Act 3 Continued
• Summaries Act 4
• Summaries Act 5
• Summaries Act 5 Continued
• Act 1 Scene 3
• Love Extension Work
• Love Extension Work Continued
• Top Tips
• Essay Writing
• Essay Writing Continued
• How To Get Top Marks
• Passage Question1

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Different Kinds of Comedy
Comedy of humours a comedy type which started at
the end of the 16th century and interpreted
characters and their personality traits. Comedy
of ideas a comedy that debates in a witty and
funny way ideas and theories. Comedy of intrigue
a comedy that deals with intricacies of plot and
surprising events, making character secondary to
plot. Comedy of manners a comedy that focuses on
the behaviour of characters living under a
specific set of social codes. It often focuses
on upper classes and is witty and
sophisticated. Comedy of menace a play in which
characters feel threatened by some obscure force,
power or personality that creates black
humour. Comedy of morals a satirical comedy
which sets out to ridicule and correct vices.
Can you think of any others?
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Different Kinds of Comedy
Comedy of morals
George Bernard Shaw
Comedy of ideas
Comedy of menace
Moliere
Comedy of humours
Harold Pinter
Ben Johnson
Comedy of intrigue
Comedy of manners
Try to link each playwright with a particular
kind of comedy
Oscar Wilde
Lets go back
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Summaries Act 1

• Act 1, scene 1 introduction to characters,
  themes and plot
• We learn that Don Pedro of Arragon is coming
  through Messina on his return from a victorious
  battle. He is to visit Leonato. Beatrice asks
  the messenger if Benedick is part of the company
  and despite insulting comments, she shows an
  interest in him. Soon Don Pedro, Claudio, and
  Benedick arrive. Beatrice and Benedick both
  demonstrate wit and both claim that love is for
  fools. Claudio shows an interest in Hero and
  thinks he is in love. He seeks Benedicks opinion
  on Hero, but Benedick only speaks against
  marriage and womankind. Don Pedro, however, is
  more supportive. He tells him that he will speak
  to Hero and her father during the masked party
  that evening and woo Hero on Claudios behalf.
• Act 1, scene 2 misunderstanding, confusion
• The first complication arises in this scene when
  Antonio misreports to Leonato that he overheard
  the Prince telling Claudio that he is in love
  with Hero. Leonato says that he'll advise his
  daughter to be prepared and he will wait to see
  what happens.

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Summaries Act 1 Continued

• Act 1, scene 3 Don John and evil plot
• We gain an insight into Don John, Don Pedro's
  illegitimate brother who has recently been
  reconciled with his brother. He is melancholic
  and a malcontent, hiding his malicious nature,
  waiting for the right moment. Borachio- his
  follower- tells him of the budding love between
  Claudio and Hero, and Don John starts to plot how
  he can cause problems for his brother and
  Claudio, who he thinks has taken his place in his
  brother's affections.

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Summaries Act 2

• Act 2, scene 1 confusion, comedy and love
  plotting
• The masks in this scene are significant in terms
  of comedy and confusion. Leonato and his
  daughter and niece talk just before the masked
  revels. Beatrice complains that there is no man
  who can match her and Hero obediently agrees to
  her father's advice to accept the Prince should
  he woo her. Don Pedro talks to Hero in private
  while Beatrice, behind her mask insults Benedick
  behind his. Meanwhile, Don John tries to put a
  cog in Claudio's plans by making him jealous he
  lies in saying that Don Pedro plans to wed Hero
  himself. The insecure Claudio thinks he has lost
  Hero. However, his jealousy turns to joy when the
  prince tells him he has won Hero for him. Having
  coupled Hero to Claudio, Don Pedro then decides
  to find a husband for Beatrice. He thinks
  Benedick is as funny and lively - the ideal
  match. Plans to trick Beatrice and Benedick so
  that they will fall in love with one another
  start.
• Act 2, scene 2 evil plot thickens, deception for
  evil
• Don John and Borachio hatch a scheme to ruin
  Claudio's wedding plans by convincing him that
  Hero is unchaste. The plan is that Borachio will
  arrange to meet with Margaret ( Heros servant)
  at Hero's window in the middle of the night.
  Seeing them, the prince and Claudio will believe
  that Hero is having an affair.

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Summaries Act 2 Continued

• Act 2, scene 3 love plotting and trickery,
  comedy, deception for good
• Benedick is in the orchard contemplating the way
  in which love has changed Claudio. He is no
  longer a plain-speaking soldier but a lover,
  concerned with poetry and fashions. Benedick
  restates his determination to have nothing to do
  with marriage. The only woman he would surrender
  himself to must have all qualities (fairness,
  wisdom and virtue) and he hasn't met any woman
  like this.
• When Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato approach,
  he hides in an arbour. Having seen him, they
  begin to trick Benedick. They announce, so he
  overhears them, that Beatrice loves Benedick, but
  that she and they fear Benedick will just make
  fun of the lady. They praise her virtues and
  condemn his scorn.
• Benedick is completely fooled by their trick,
  and decides he must requite her love. When
  Beatrice is sent to call him in to dinner, he
  mistakes her harsh words for proof of love.

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Summaries Act 3

• Act 3, scene 1 love plotting and trickery,
  comedy, deception for good
• In a parallel scene to the last, Hero arranges
  for Beatrice to overhear a conversation about
  Benedick's love sickness over her. Beatrice
  listens while Hero and her waiting lady, Ursula,
  bemoan the situation. They claim that Beatrice
  would scorn Benedick if she knew. Beatrice is
  taken in and has a complete change of heart she
  vows to love Benedick if he will have her and to
  relinquish her pride.
• Act 3, scene 2 love plot and evil plot enact
• Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato tease Benedick
  saying he doesn't look himself as he is pale and
  newly shaven. He says he has tooth ache and then
  asks to talk privately to Leonato.
• With Benedick gone, Don John joins Don Pedro and
  Claudio. He accuses Hero of being unfaithful. He
  claims that he wants to save Claudio from a
  dishonourable marriage. He offers to show them a
  meeting that night between Hero and her lover.
  Claudio swears that if she is with a man, he will
  shame her at their wedding before everyone and
  Don Pedro supports him.

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Summaries Act 3 Continued

• Act 3, scene 3 comic relief, misunderstanding,
  potential for a happy
• ending
• The night watch congregates and gets confused
  instructions from Dogberry and Verges in how to
  protect the streets. Borachio arrives and they
  overhear him brag to Conrade about earning a
  thousand ducats from Don John by fooling Claudio
  and Don Pedro into believing that Hero is
  unfaithful, although it was he who met Hero's
  maid Margaret. The watch officers arrest Borachio
  and Conrade for this treachery.
• Act 3, scene 4 love plots
• Hero nervously prepared for the wedding while
  Beatrice acts lovesick and melancholy. Margaret
  teases Beatrice, saying she may be in love, but
  Beatrice says she has a cold.
• Act 3, scene 5 misunderstanding, potential for
  happy ending is thwarted
• Constable Dogberry meets with Leonato to inform
  him that during the night, the Watch arrested two
  men. He says that they need to be examined.
  However, Leonato who is in a hurry to leave for
  the church with Hero, cannot understand what
  Dogberry and Verges are trying to say. He orders
  them to conduct the examination themselves.

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Summaries Act 4

• Act 4, scene 1 evil plot takes hold, love plot
  develops
• Everyone meets at the church for Hero and
  Claudios wedding. When the friar asks if Claudio
  is here to marry Hero, he says no. He denounces
  Hero as unchaste-calling her a "rotten orange.
  Hero is upset and faints, her father is confused
  but believing.
• Beatrice, Benedick, Leonato, and the friar try
  to understand what has happened. Beatrice insists
  on her cousins innocence and Benedick supports
  her. He suspects that Don John is behind the
  accusations and suggests this as a believable
  explanation. The Friar hatches a plan. He
  suggests that people should be allowed to think
  Hero has died. Claudio will feel remorse, and
  they will have time to find out what has
  happened.
• Benedick confesses his love to Beatrice, who
  finally admits that she loves him also. As a sign
  of his love, Beatrice asks Benedick to seek
  revenge against Claudio by killing him for his
  wrongdoing. Benedick eventually agrees to
  challenge Claudio.
• Act 4, scene 2 potential for a happy ending
  aided
• The Constables assemble to interrogate the
  prisoners, and after much confusion caused by
  Dogberry's incompetence, the Sexton accuses
  Borachio and Conrade of plotting against Hero and
  sends them to Leonato.

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Summaries Act 5

• Act 5, scene 1 evil plot is thwarted, deception
  for good
• Leonato is upset at events and the possible
  slander against Hero. He refuses to be comforted
  by his brother who may think Hero dead. When Don
  Pedro and Claudio appear, Leonato and then his
  brother Antonio challenge Claudio to a duel to
  regain Heros honour, but Claudio and Don Pedro
  dismiss the old men.
• Benedick meets with Claudio and Don Pedro. He
  challenges Claudio to a duel. He also tells Don
  Pedro that Don John has fled Messina and that
  they are guilty of falsely accusing and killing
  an innocent lady.
• The constables arrive and reveal Don Johns evil
  scheme. Don Pedro and Claudio are shocked, and
  Claudio returns to his first loving thoughts of
  Hero. Leonato enters and accuses Don Pedro and
  Claudio of being villains for causing the death
  of Hero by believing the accusations against her.
  When they beg for forgiveness, Leonato orders
  that they announce Hero's innocence to the
  people. Also, Leonato states that Claudio must
  marry his niece the next day. They agree to all.
• Act 5, scene 2 love plot develops
• Benedick meets with Beatrice to declare his love
  again and to tell her that he has challenged
  Claudio. Ursula arrives with the news about Don
  John's scheme.

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Summaries Act 5 Continued

• Act 5, scene 3 deception for good
• At the family monument of Leonato, Claudio and
  Don John demonstrate their grief at Heros death.
  Claudio recites an epitaph to Hero and the two
  then leave as dawn breaks to change for the new
  wedding.
• Act 5, scene 4 all is resolved
• Leonato awaits Claudio whom he plans to wed to
  his daughter, Hero., although Claudio thinks he
  is to wed Antonios daughter. He grants Benedick
  permission to marry Beatrice. The women come
  forward masked. Claudio declares himself husband
  to the masked woman he stands beside, and Hero
  then reveals herself, much to his joy.
• Beatrice and Benedick begin to argue about
  whether they really love one another, but their
  friends have proof of their love poems they have
  written. They kiss and everyone joins together in
  a dance to celebrate the marriages, just as a
  messenger arrives to say that Don John has been
  captured.

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Act 1 Scene 3
Lets go back
Don John is a melancholic character
He refuses to change himself and revels in his
melancholy
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Love Extension Work
Read the following extract from As You Like It
and see if you can liken it to anyones
sentiments in Much Ado About Nothing? (Hint look
at 2.1) No, no, Orlandomen are April when they
woo, December when they wedmaids are May when
they are maids, but the skychanges when they are
wives. Love has been the subject of literature
for centuries. Chaucer (the father of English
poetry) referred to it, Dante, Petrarch, Marlowe,
Shakespeare, Keats and many more did likewise.
It is now commonly expressed in songs, films and
modern tales. Try to find one Chaucer tale that
deals with love. Read Marlowes poem The
Passionate Shepherd to his Love and Keats La
Belle Dame San Merci. What kind of love is
expressed in each? Find an example of a modern
love poem, song or tale. Does it have anything
in common with older tales? Please continue
to next slide
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Love Extension Work Continued
Lets go back
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Top Tips

• Remember to
• Speak clearly and loud enough to be heard
• Vary your tone and pace to convey different
  emotions
• Pause to suggest contemplation and thought
• Use actions for movement and emotion
• Think about your character
• What status do you hold? Are you very important
  and respected? Are you a comic character?
• Are you big/ small, happy, angry, sad, evil,
  good-hearted, bossy?
• Think about how you could convey your characters
  nature and emotions
• For example
• If you are playing Don John in Act 1 Scene 3,
  remember you are embittered and melancholic. You
  are sad and plotting, unwilling to change and
  looking for an opportunity to get revenge, so
  perhaps you would be scowling your voice would
  be low and serious. What movements might
  accompany this? Would you be stationary on stage
  or pacing? Would your hands be still or flailing?

Lets go back
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Essay Writing

• Critical essays are essays that you write about
  literature texts. They are analytical and they
  examine different aspects of a text character,
  theme, setting, structure, style.
• Like all pieces of work they are organised and
  make sense.
• To do this you follow a pattern of INTRODUCTION,
  MAIN BODY OF ESSAY and CONCLUSION.
• Please continue to next slide.

The people in the text
The ideas or key messages in a text
The kind of text - comedy, horror e.t.c and the
language, imagery and symbols
Where the action takes place
How the text is organised
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Essay Writing Continued

• The introduction addresses the question you are
  answering and briefly outlines the argument of
  your essay.
• The main body of your essay is made up of several
  paragraphs. It is a detailed examination of the
  question. In it, you make statements about the
  text and you support what you say in an
  analytical way.
• Each paragraph should deal with a separate point
  and should follow smoothly from the last.
• You should follow the formula of STATE, QUOTE,
  ANALYSE in this section of the essay.
• Your conclusion comes last and this is your
  chance to sum up the main points of your essay
  and to throw some new light on the subject.

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How To Get Top Marks

• In order to score at the highest levels in essays
  you need to
• Focus on the question throughout the essay
• Show a good knowledge and understanding of the
  text
• Quote appropriately and analyse what you write
• Examine language as part of meaning where
  appropriate
• Refer to the context of the play - its social and
  historical background, but do not do this as an
  add-on paragraph. Do this fluently and where
  relevant in the essay.
• Show an awareness of how meaning can be ambiguous
  so other readings of the text are possible. You
  can refer to different approaches to the text-
  feminist readings, Marxist, formalist or you can
  refer to a critic or to a production that
  interpreted a character or a scene in a different
  way.

Press escape to return to the main presentation
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Passage Question 1
Effective drama is entertaining and informative
Examine the following passage in terms of its
dramatic effectiveness
irony
Exaggeration used for comic effect- Benedick as
the Petrarchan lover
irony
Beatrices character is reinforced comically
References to appearance and reality
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Passage Question 1 Continued
Lets go back
Both speak blank verse
Hunting imagery
irony
Last ten lines of a sonnet love
Comedy through deception
His name is linked to Beatrices
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The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Lets go back

• Come live with me and be my love,
• And we will all the pleasures prove
• That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
• Woods or steepy mountain yields.
• And we will sit upon the rocks,
• Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
• By shallow rivers to whose falls
• Melodious birds sing madrigals.
• And I will make thee beds of roses
• And a thousand fragrant posies,
• A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
• Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle

• A gown made of the finest wool
• Which from our pretty lambs we pull
• Fair lined slippers for the cold,
• With buckles of the purest gold
• A belt of straw and ivy buds,
• With coral clasps and amber studs
• And if these pleasures may thee move,
• Come live with me and be my love.
• The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing
• For thy delight each May morning
• If these delights thy mind may move,
• Then live with me and be my love.
• Marlowe

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La Belle Dame Sans Merci
Lets go back

• 'O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,    Alone
  and palely loitering?The sedge is wither'd from
  the lake,            And no birds sing.
• 'O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,    So
  haggard and so woe-begone?The squirrel's granary
  is full,            And the harvest 's done.
• 'I see a lily on thy brow    With anguish moist
  and fever dewAnd on thy cheeks a fading
  rose            Fast withereth too.'
• 'I met a lady in the meads,    Full beautifula
  faery's child,Her hair was long, her foot was
  light,            And her eyes were wild.
• 'I made a garland for her head,    And bracelets
  too, and fragrant zoneShe look'd at me as she
  did love,            And made sweet moan.
• 'I set her on my pacing steed    And nothing
  else saw all day long,For sideways would she
  lean, and sing            A faery's song.

• 'She found me roots of relish sweet,    And
  honey wild and manna dew,And sure in language
  strange she said,            "I love thee true!"
  
• 'She took me to her elfin grot,    And there she
  wept and sigh'd fill soreAnd there I shut her
  wild, wild eyes            With kisses four.
• 'And there she lulled me asleep,    And there I
  dream'dAh! woe betide!The latest dream I ever
  dream'd            On the cold hill's side.
• 'I saw pale kings and princes too,    Pale
  warriors, death-pale were they allThey
  cried"La belle Dame sans Merci            Hath
  thee in thrall!"
• 'I saw their starved lips in the gloam    With
  horrid warning gaped wide,And I awoke and found
  me here,            On the cold hill's side.
• 'And this is why I sojourn here    Alone and
  palely loitering,Though the sedge is wither'd
  from the lake,            And no birds sing.'

Keats