Much Ado about Nothing (Vol. 88) - A. R. Humphreys (essay date 1981)
A. R. Humphreys (essay date 1981)
SOURCE: Humphreys, A. R., ed. Introduction to The Arden Shakespeare: Much Ado about Nothing, by William Shakespeare, pp. 1-84. London: Methuen, 1981.
[In the following excerpt, Humphreys surveys the principal literary sources for Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing.]
(I) CLAUDIO AND HERO
GENERAL SURVEY
Stories of the lover deceived by a rival or enemy into believing his beloved false are widespread and of great antiquity. An analogue of the Claudio-Hero plot has been traced back to a fifth-century Greek romance by Chariton, Chaereas and Kallirrhoe. Seventeen Renaissance versions, narrative or dramatic, are recorded before Shakespeare's, in Spanish, Italian, French, German, and English. They include the fifteenth-century Spanish Tirant lo Blanch (Tirant the White) by Juan Martorell, which probably lies behind Ariosto's version in the fifth canto of Orlando...
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