Quotes and Possible Essay Questions for Much Ado About Nothing

Quotations:

1. "I wonder you will still be talking, Signior Benedick; nobody marks you." Beatrice 1.1

2. "What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?" Benedick 1.1

3. "I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace ..." Don John 1.3

4. "She speaks poniards, and every word stabs." Benedick 2.1

5. "... we are the only love-gods." Don Pedro 2.2

6. "... her hair shall be of what color it please God." Benedick 2.3

7. "No, the world must be peopled." Benedick 2.3

8. "There's a double meaning in that." Benedick 2.3

9. "I will requite thee, / Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand." Beatrice 3.1

10. "... in the congregation where I should wed, there will I shame her." Claudio 3.2

11. "This looks not like a nuptial." Benedick 4.1

12. "You have stayed me in a happy hour. I was about to protest I loved you." Beatrice 4.1

13. "Kill Claudio." Beatrice 4.1

14. "Not for the wide world!" Benedick 4.1

15. "O that I had been writ down an ass!" Dogberry 4.2

16. "What though care killed a cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care." Claudio 5.1

17. "You are a villain; I jest not ..." Benedick 5.1

18. "Serve God, love me, and mend." Benedick 5.2

19. "I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes; and moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle's." Benedick 5.2

20. "Why, what's the matter / That you have such a February face ..." Don Pedro 5.4

21. "Come, I will have thee; but, by this light, I take thee for pity." Benedick 5.4

22. "... by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion, and partly to save your life ..." Beatrice 5.4

Possible Essay Questions:

1. Analyze any one scene in Much Ado discussing sections and subsections, alternating groups of characters, and thematic concerns.

2. Compare and contrast Beatrice and Hero.

3. Discuss any one of the three productions of Much Ado.

4. Compare and contrast any two films of Much Ado.

5. Discuss the relationship between Claudio and Hero. Is it possible for Hero (and for us) to forgive him? Is the disaster within the play merely a more dramatic form of what was destined to happen anyway?

6. Are Beatrice and Benedick an ideal couple? Is the fact they are roughly equal in wit and intelligence significant? Do you find their attitude toward love and their courtship more satisfying than Claudio and Hero's? Why or why not?

7. Discuss the many mistaken "notings" in Much Ado. What may Shakespeare be saying about the nature of this post-lapsarian world?

8. Is it significant that Shakespeare's comic heroines (Portia, Rosalind, Beatrice) are willing to defy authority? Can they be seen as the means of establishing a new and healthier authority?

9. Discuss the character of Beatrice and/or Benedick. Is Benedick a womanish man because he abandons his male friends? Is Beatrice a mannish woman or a shrew because she is not obviously submissive? In what ways do Beatrice and Benedick challenge traditional sex roles? Is the challenge a healthy one?