Relationship Between Claudio and Hero to that of Beatrice and Benedick

The film turns on the Claudio and Hero love plot, a young love based on obsession, even though this is less interesting than the Beatrice and Benedict sub-plot, which celebrates a more mature love which is based on independence and intelligence. This plot include ‘testing’ of love: Which we are shown by Beatrice demanding that Benedict challenge’s Claudio and Don Pedro for their role in Hero’s humiliation, and by doing so, Benedict chooses love for Beatrice over loyalty to friends, after which she then accepts him in marriage.

Concluding to this many critics believe and have said that the plot of Much Ado About Nothing shares significant parts with that of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Saying that the plot which concerns the relationship between Claudio and Hero, in contrast to the parallel plot of Beatrice and Benedick, which has much in common with Shakespeare’s later plays (which are often called romances or tragicomedies).

In The 1400’s the Renaissance movement began in Italy, and spread to the rest of Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Renaissance movement had a major role in every day life.

Women where not worthy of their freedom strengthens or could be highly educated. Women were seen as a means of exchanging honour and property between men.

Marriages were arranged by the daughter’s fathers and were based upon wealth and power and not love like in today’s society.

Shakespeare makes some interesting comments on women’s roles and societies class roles in the Renaissance period, and he emphasizes this by potraying the women in white floaty dresses. QUOTE

Symbolizing the innocence and purity of the household and in particular Hero in the play.

However, the men are potrayed in black leather trousers and white shirts in a kind of military style outfit. Resembeling power and leadership.

Through out the play Hero is presented to us as a one-dimensional character and a well-behaved Renaissance daughter of Leonato. Which is what the Victorian audience would have expected. Because they could relate this to there own lives and the period of time.

Beatrice, Hero’s cousin is somewhat different and is an unexpected and frowned upon character to the audience. She is a modern woman who is independent and refuses to be identified as a woman in a male-dominated society. Beatrice’s pride makes her different from the other characters and both the audience notice this, as well as Hero:

“Nature never fram’d a woman’s heart of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice.

Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes, Misprising what they look on, and her wit Values itself so highly that to her All matter else…”

This type of character was not liked in the Renaissance society even though Beatrice plays a major role in the play and is very comical when it comes to talking to another character:

“O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease: he is sooner caught than the pestilence.”

An important theme in Shakespeare’s play is the importance of kinship bonds, being loyal to your close relations.

When Claudio attacks Hero with the speech of “O, what men dare do! What men may do! What men daily do, not knowing what they do!”

Beatrice clearly stays with her Cousin, showing her loyalty to her kin by protecting Hero, this suggests that women were coming together and were becoming more powerful against the male dominated society.

But because Leonato believes Claudio’s acquisitions against his daughter, Hero, and her protests of innocence, he then decides to choose the bonds of men over those of kin. Because of this strong bond in relationships, many people challenged it as a Heterosexual love. His sonnets, containing some of the most emotional love poetry of any age, and were written to a man, most likely to a good friend of Shakespeare’s, the Earl of Southampton. However, Anthony Holden (a prolific writer and broadcaster) argues that it was common for male friends to express their “love” for one another, so the sonnets should not be taken to suggest Shakespeare’s homosexuality. He says Sonnet 20, with its many references to male and female genitalia, makes “the poet’s heterosexuality brutally clear.”

Beatrice also has a very connevious idea when she asks Benedict to prove his love for her, she is really asking him to choose her over his friends. “….”Like we would in modern today’s society

The relationship of Beatrice and Benedick is counterpoised to the more traditional relationship of Hero and Claudio. Claudio, having returned from the war, now has the leisure and desire to marry Hero. He is concerned about her social (and economic) position and how others perceive her. He asks Benedick what he thinks.

Much Ado is a play with different discourses on the nature of love. The film turns on the Claudio and Hero love plot, a young love based on obsession, even though this is less interesting than the Beatrice and Benedict sub-plot, which celebrates a mature love based on independence, wit and intelligence. Both plots include a severe ‘testing’ of love: Hero has her character brutalised and her virtue impugned, and Claudio is forced to repent and apologise to her, after which she accepts him in marriage; and

Beatrice demands that Benedict challenge Claudio and Don Pedro for their role in Hero’s humiliation, and by doing so, Benedict chooses love for Beatrice over loyalty to friends, after which she accepts him in marriage.

Beatrice and Benedict engage in a ‘merry war’ with ‘skirmish of wit’ (1.1.50-51), which hide their true feelings for each other. They also have the individual fears of, in Benedict’s case, being cuckolded in marriage and in Beatrice’s, distrust of men.

Benedict’s views are most clearly seen after Claudio confides to him his feelings for Hero. Benedict replies:

That a woman conceived me, I thank her. That she likewise brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks. But that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon me.

Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none. And the fine is-for the which I may go the finer-I will live a bachelor (1.1.195).

Beatrice’s views on men are encapsulated in the song she recites at the start of the film (Balthasar’s in the play – 2.3.56-71):

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more.

Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore, To one thing constant never.

Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny.”

For example, when Leonato consents to Claudio marrying Hero, he says to him: ‘Count, Take me of my daughter, and with her, my fortunes’ (2.1.263-264). Luckily for Hero, she actually loves Claudio – passionately enough, apparently, to forgive him for his brutal assault on her character. Perhaps her lack of personality and assertiveness make her an easier target for the misrepresentations of others, and in this, she forms a stark contrast to the robust and wordy Beatrice who, as an orphan, is not answerable to the marrying wishes of her parents. Beatrice is valued for her wit, intelligence and compassion. However, Beatrice is anxious about dying unmarried; her cheerful allusion to leading apes into hell, the proverbial fate of women who died unmarried (2.1.33), hides a fear of dying a spinster.

Love

There was a star danced, and under that was I born.

~ William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

Indicating that she is like jesus, born from a virgin

How might an Elizabethan Audience view these characters?

William Shakespeare who is well known world wide for his colloquial expressions and emotional language techniques wrote the play Much Ado about Nothing between 1598 and 1600.

Many critics have said that the plot of Much Ado About Nothing shares significant parts with that of Romeo and Juliet.

In The 1400’s the Renaissance movement began in Italy, and spread to the rest of Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Renaissance movement had a major role in every day life.

Women where not worthy of there freedom strengthens or could be highly educated. And women were seen as a means of exchanging honour and property between men.

Marriages were arranged by the daughter’s fathers and were based upon wealth and power and not love like in today’s society.

Shakespeare makes some interesting comments on women’s roles and societies class roles in the Renaissance period, and he emphasizes this by potraying the women in white floaty dresses. Symbolizing the innocence and purity of the household and in particular Hero in the play.

However, the men are potrayed in black leather trousers and white shirts in a kind of military style outfit.

Through out the play Hero is presented to us as a one-dimensional character and a well-behaved Renaissance daughter of Leonato. Which is what the Victorian audience would have expected. Because they could relate this to there own lives and the period of time.

Beatrice, Hero’s cousin is somewhat different and is an unexpected and frowned upon character to the audience. She is a modern woman who is independent and refuses to be identified as a woman in a male-dominated society. Beatrice’s pride makes her different from the other characters and both the audience notice this, as well as Hero:

“Nature never fram’d a woman’s heart of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice.

Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes,

Misprising what they look on, and her wit

Values itself so highly that to her

All matter else…”

This type of character was not liked in the Renaissance society even though Beatrice plays a major role in the play and is very comical when it comes to talking to another character:

“O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease: he is sooner caught than the pestilence.”

An important theme in Shakespeare’s play is the importance of kinship bonds, being loyal to your close relations.

When Claudio attacks Hero with the speech of

“O, what men dare do! What men may do! What men daily do, not knowing what they do!”

Beatrice clearly stays with her Cousin, showing her loyalty to her kin by protecting Hero, this suggests that women were coming together and were becoming more powerful against the male dominated society.

But because Leonato believes Claudio’s acquisitions against his daughter, Hero, and her protests of innocence, he then decides to choose the bonds of men over those of kin. Because of this strong bond in relationships, many people challenged it as a Heterosexual love. His sonnets, containing some of the most emotional love poetry of any age, and were written to a man, most likely to a good friend of Shakespeare’s, the Earl of Southampton. However, Anthony Holden (a prolific writer and broadcaster) argues that it was common for male friends to express their “love” for one another, so the sonnets should not be taken to suggest Shakespeare’s homosexuality. He says Sonnet 20, with its many references to male and female genitalia, makes “the poet’s heterosexuality brutally clear.”