SOURCE: Ross, Thomas W. “Maimed Rites in Much Ado About Nothing.” Costerus: Essays in English and American Language and Literature 5 (1972): 125-34.

[In the following essay, Ross compares Much Ado about Nothing to Shakespeare's problem plays and notes the play's elements of disharmony and ethical ambiguity. Ross contends, however, that the play is not a failure, but “succeeds brilliantly in conveying its bitter-sweet power.”]

Critics have never accepted Much Ado as a problem play—or as a forerunner of the Last Plays, the romances or tragi-comedies. Yet if we are made aware of this drama's affinities with these kinds of play, we can understand and enjoy it more readily. We can balance extravagant critical pronouncements about it—as, for instance, that it is a “wedding of love and humor”¹ and thus is like most of the comedies of the 1590's; or that it is a peculiarly “venomous play” with its distinctive “foul odor.”²

In its ambiguous effects, it is akin to the problem plays; in its ritual movement—though Shakespeare chooses not to develop this idea—it is like the romances. Much Ado is a problem play because it conveys to us a sense of ethical imbalance; and, instead of fulfillment through ritual (the theme of the Last Plays), it offers only “maimed rites.”³

Despite some confusion about the nature of the problem play, we can find considerable agreement among the scholars. Boas identified the theme as the “weakness, levity, and unbridled passion of young men.”⁴ Tillyard agreed, adding that the central action is “a young man gets a shock.”⁵ He also found that a major motif in such plays was the relationship between the “old and new generations”; the young characters are “forcibly brought to maturity in the course of the play”; and the “business that most promotes this process of growth is transacted at night” (p. 9). Summing it all up, Lawrence saw that the problem-play situation permits “different ethical interpretations” (p. 4).

Lawrence's words describe what I have called “ethical imbalance.” In Much Ado it starts with the outrage aroused by Claudio's epithet for his bride-to-be, Hero—“rotten orange” (IV. i. 33; 1689).⁶ And there is no alleviation of our sense of shock as the play progresses. It is not fair that this despicable puppy should have a second chance and be awarded Hero again. There are obviously parallel injustices in All's Well, Measure for Measure, and Troilus.

Following the Lawrence-cum-Tillyard formula further, we find that Much Ado is indeed a play about the old and new generations, as Tillyard says a problem play should be. The confrontation between youth and age comes to a climax in the pathetic encounter between the old men, Leonato and Antonio, and the “fashion-monging boys” (V. i. 94; 2181), Pedro and Claudio.

All four lovers are compelled to “grow-up”—and Hero's maturation is described as a rebirth. The “business” which promotes Claudio's growth (such as it is) is of course the ritual scene in the church (V. iii), which does take place at night. Though Tillyard did not comment on the importance of a nocturnal setting, it may be observed that it establishes the dark-to-light movement which, along with parallel patterns like winter-summer and death-life, is common in Shakespeare's comedies and not just in the “problem” plays. In Much Ado, however, the “light” at the end of Act V is dimmed by the unconcern of those who were injured in Act IV.

If we expect a tidy gratification of our need for poetic justice, Much Ado will not do. It satisfies us in ways which are not those of the happy comedies like As You Like It or Twelfth Night. In Much Ado there is a disharmony⁷ among the three major sets of characters, even though Shakespeare knits them carefully together. They are Hero and Claudio; Beatrice and Benedick; and Dogberry, Verges, and the Watch. One need not even consider the obviously discordant misanthropes, Borachio, Conrade, and the villainous Don John, who at the end of the play remains unpunished.

The first group of characters, the romantic young lovers, seems at first to fulfill all the traditions of sentimental wooing. They fall in love at first sight. There is a barrier to their love (Don Pedro seems to woo Hero for himself—II. i. 169-181; 569-580), but the obstacle quickly disappears and they rush to church as fast as decency permits. The bridegroom complains, like Theseus in A Midsummer Night's Dream and a dozen others, “Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites” (II. i. 372-373; 752-753). Then until they are actually before the altar in the presence of Friar Francis all is conventional smooth sailing.

The incomparable Beatrice and Benedick provide a contrasting theme of a kind which is almost as familiar as the boy-gets-boy-loses-boy-gets pattern set up for Hero and Claudio: it resembles the Berowne et al. theme in Love's Labour's Lost. Here the two sworn enemies to the blind bow-boy find out too late that they have been tricked into betrothal. Both themes turn a little sour—that of the young lovers and that of the older and more worldly Beatrice and Benedick.

Dogberry and his simple cohorts are mechanically necessary to the plot. As Borachio admits, “What your wisdoms could not discover, these shallow fools have brought to light” (V. i. 238-240; 2314-2316). They must discover Don John's guile and in their maddeningly slow and malapropistic way disclose it so that Hero can be rehabilitated and Benedick will not have to carry through with his challenge to Claudio. Leonato ridicules them mercilessly, but they are stupidly unaware of it. Though I should not like to press the point, I might suggest that the “ugliness” of this episode parallels the humiliation of Hero and the discomfort of Beatrice and Benedick.

Leonato tells Dogberry and the rest, “Neighbors, you are tedious” (III. v. 20; 1613). They discover Hero's innocence, but too late. She is “dead” and we cannot forget her stricken silence in the church—or the bitterness in Benedick's challenge to his old comrade in arms. Benedick himself seems to have forgotten it as the play comes to an end, and Claudio never was much affected by it—both responses which are of considerable significance, as I shall point out later on.

Shakespeare thus provides mechanical links among all three parts of the plot. There are other unifying devices—less evident, perhaps, but nonetheless significant. All three lines of movement depend upon mistaken appearances and eavesdropping;⁸ and, despite the confusion present in all three threads of plot, they thrust forward to the recognition of identity and regenerative festivity which typify Shakespearean comedy.⁹

Actually Shakespeare works out the structure very neatly and the apparent discords seem to be resolved. But before the harmonies of Act V are sounded, there are those disturbing moments which one cannot forget, no matter how melodious the denouement. They center upon Claudio's character and behavior. We are not reassured when critics tell us that the “Claudio-Hero plot has light entertainment as its object.”¹⁰ Neither in Shakespeare's day nor in ours have audiences been so callous as to find amusement in the public humiliation and apparent death of an innocent and lively girl. Nor can we laugh at Beatrice's “Kill Claudio” (IV. i. 291; 1952)¹¹ or at the brilliant portrayal of controlled ferocity and guffawing incredulity among the three blasé friends, Benedick, Claudio, and Don Pedro (V. i. 111 ff.; 2200 ff.). The latter two are shown—here and elsewhere in the play—as bored aristocrats to whom everything is a joke. Don Pedro can hardly believe that Benedick is in earnest (197; 2279). He thinks that it is all too, too silly. But we are not amused.

The parallels with All's Well—which has been pretty well established as a problem play—are obvious. Helena is humiliated publicly, and Bertram, like Claudio, fails to win our respect, even though he gets the heroine in Act V. Parolles is humiliated too (somewhat like Dogberry), in a movement parallel with the Bertram-Helena action; however, he recognizes his weaknesses and descants upon them with a disarming candor which is of course quite beyond the Constable and the members of the Watch.

Both Much Ado and All's Well exhibit that ethical ambiguity which is a hallmark of the problem play.¹² Just as this ambiguity is centered on Bertram in the later play, so too it depends upon Claudio, his counterpart in Much Ado. Don John's opinion of the young soldier and lover is of course colored by his prejudices. Still, his sneers should alert us: “the most exquisite Claudio” and “a proper squire” (I. iii. 52, 54; 389, 391) are bitterly ironic, but they are right. As judgments of the protagonist's character they are confirmed by Beatrice's shrewd and annoyed “Count Comfect, a sweet gallant, surely” (IV. i. 318-319; 1978). Even if we regard Claudio “historically”—that is, as a realistic Elizabethan patrician—and defend his callous inquiry about Hero's financial prospects,¹³ we are still aware, as Frye puts it, that:

Claudio becomes engaged to Hero without also engaging his loyalty; he retains the desire to be rid of her if there should be inconvenience in the arrangement, and this desire acts precisely like a humor, blinding him to the obvious facts of the situation. In his second marriage ceremony, he pledges his loyalty first, before he has seen the bride, and this relieves him from his humorous bondage.

(p. 81)

Though we should probably disagree about Claudio's being a “humour” character, these remarks put the finger on his moral flabbiness. He is “prim and shallow”¹⁴—or worse. We may well compare him with the Claudio in Measure for Measure or with Bertram, the “proud scornful boy” in All's Well (II. iii. 158; 1054).

This comparison of Claudio and Bertram reveals the similarities between the two problem plays. Now as we turn to the parallels between Much Ado and the romances, we find that they are mainly associated with Hero. Frye gives us a clue (without, however, observing that Much Ado foreshadows the late, romances):

In Much Ado we have the same theme of calumniation [as that in Terence's Hecyra], but Shakespeare has put it in something much closer to a primitive society by suggesting so strongly that Hero actually dies and revives in the play.¹⁵

After Hero's calumniation, Friar Francis persuades Leonato to agree to the “dead Hero” ruse, promising “on this travail look for greater birth” (IV. i. 215; 1877); he encourages the humiliated child with “Come, lady, die to live” (255; 1918). It is obvious that the great theme of regeneration which Shakespeare develops in all his romances is also played, in prelude form, in Much Ado. Marina, Imogen, and most clearly Hermione, Perdita, and Miranda—all share in this stirring movement from death to birth.

However, the Last Plays are based on the dual theme of regeneration and forgiveness. Hermione (The Winter's Tale, III. ii. 124; 1303) speaks of “pity, not revenge” and in The Tempest Prospero pardons his enemies (V. i. 78; 2034). In these plays the sacrifice of innocence has its hoped-for effect. The ritual movement from evil-doing through recognition to atonement touches the lives of all the other characters in the romances and they are the better for it. The tempest purges and makes everyone more fully themselves, when their lives had previously been incompletely realized (cf. The Tempest, V. i. 212-213; 2194-2195).

The same great theme is initiated in Much Ado About Nothing but—oh, the pity of it!—it has no effect. Though Claudio learns the truth, it does not arouse remorse or penitence in him. Instead he offers a glib excuse for his inexcusable brutality: “Yet sinned I not / But in mistaking” (V. i. 284-285; 2358-2359) and speaks of himself as “poor Claudio” (305; 2381). Shakespeare has previously sounded this disagreeable note of self-pity in the earlier scene where Hero's father Leonato accepts his daughter's guilt without demur and can do nothing but speak of the dishonor to himself (IV. i. 122 ff.; 1783 ff.).¹⁶

In the romances, supernatural powers (e.g., Apollo in The Winter's Tale) often set in motion the ritual of forgiveness and atonement. In Much Ado, however, the ritual scene (V. iii.; 2521-2553) is scanted—a paltry thing. In 33 lines, Claudio recites his expiatory verses (confused doggerel they are, too); calls for a hymn; and is ready to change into his finery for the second wedding. No god appears. Instead there are perfunctory allusions to Diana, Phoebus, and Hymen. The ceremony is as mechanical and casual as the turning of a prayer-wheel—progressing, all too smoothly, from the idea of Hero's chastity (Diana); to the promise of morning (Phoebus) after the “night” of the heroine's humiliation; and then to the sacrament of marriage (Hymen).¹⁷

What disturbs us is that Claudio never says, “I ask your pardon” (contrast Leontes, for instance, in The Winter's Tale, V. iii. 147; 3361). Further, Benedick never begs pardon of Claudio, nor does Claudio implore forgiveness of his sworn brother. Hero's placidity is worst of all. We certainly do not want her to be self-righteous, but we anticipate the expression of some feelings about her denunciation and “death.” Yet Shakespeare denies us this gratification. All we get is a paradox in sing-song iambs:

One Hero died defiled, but I do live,
And surely as I live, I am a maid.

(V. iv. 63-64; 2621-2622)

Perhaps we are to understand that she tacitly forgives Claudio. If so, his reaction is all the more appalling—astonishment but no remorse.

Hero's sacrifice of her virginity in the second marriage does not release the “contained” or “controlled energy”¹⁸ which is the latent power within it. Even Parolles in All's Well acknowledges this power. Characteristically, as he sees it, the force is unleashed only when the virgo intacta ceases to exist:

There's little can be said in 't. 'Tis against the rule of nature. … Virginity murders itself and should be buried in highways out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate offendress against nature. … Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the canon. Keep it not. You cannot choose but lose by 't!

(I. i. 148 ff.; 140 ff.)

Helena, to whom these words are addressed, releases the energy of her virginity through the “bed trick,” and Bertram is, in some measure, restored thereby. But Hero's sacrifice of her maidenhood touches no one, not even herself. The “sanctimonious ceremonies” which make up the last two acts of The Tempest (see IV. i. 16; 1668) are ignored in Much Ado. Shakespeare does not bring into action those healing powers which can be liberated through ritual.

Much Ado amuses and distresses us. It is a distress which we can identify as similar to that aroused by the other problem plays—a discomfiture aroused by an incompletely developed romance of tragi-comedy. This is the effect for which Shakespeare was striving. The inequities leave us puzzled and pained, just as they do when we read its sister-plays—Measure for Measure, All's Well, and Troilus. Puzzlement does not mean that the drama has failed, however. As a combination of problem and romance, it succeeds brilliantly in conveying its bitter-sweet power.

The ceremony of innocence is drowned, as in Yeats' poem. Rites are maimed. Though the sacrifice is punctiliously performed, no matter “how ceremonious, solemn, and unearthly / It was i' the offering,” it does not have the anticipated effect (cf. The Winter's Tale, III. i. 7-8; 1153-1154). The rites in Much Ado are marriages and a ritual of atonement. The personages involved ignore them, almost entirely. Life is not often like The Tempest or, for that matter, like As You Like It. Sometimes it is a combination of unresolved discordant ingredients like gaiety and cruelty, and these make up the subject matter of Much Ado About Nothing.

Notes

1. Donald Stauffer, Shakespeare's World of Images (New York, 1949), p. 68.

2. E. J. West, “Much Ado About An Unpleasant Play,” Shakespeare Association Bulletin, XXI (1946), 30, 34. Among the few scholars to take the play seriously, though they do not identify it as a problem play or describe its parallels with the romances, are Paul and Miriam Mueschke, “Illusion and Metamorphosis in Much Ado About Nothing,” Shakespeare Quarterly, XVIII (1967), 53-65. They find that it has more in common with Troilus and Cressida and Othello than with As You Like It, “with which it is generally associated” (p. 64).

3. Since 1896 when F. S. Boas coined the term “problem play,” those critics who have found the concept useful have agreed that under the rubric should be included All's Well, Measure, and Troilus. To these Boas added Hamlet. W. W. Lawrence, Shakespeare's Problem Comedies (New York, 1931), and E. M. W. Tillyard, Shakespeare's Problem Plays (New York, 1964), followed suit. In The Problem Plays of Shakespeare (New York, 1963), Ernest Schanzer retained Measure but found that it had closer affinities with Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra than with the other “traditional” problem plays.

4. Quoted in Schanzer, p. 188.

5. P. 6. In an acrimonious review of Tillyard's book, Derek Traversi, “Academic Criticism Today,” Scrutiny, XVII (1950-1951), 181, claimed that it failed to identify the “characteristic modes of expression which differentiate these plays, by their possession of common qualities, from the rest of Shakespeare's production.” But is Traversi's own definition better? See An Approach to Shakespeare (New York, 1956), pp. 61, 62: “From the point of view of Shakespeare's developing dramatic art, [the problem plays] show a notable concentration on two related problems—the consistent presentation of character and the projection into a coherent dramatic pattern of complex states of experience. … All these plays are concerned, each after its own fashion, with the effort to arrive at some kind of personal order in a world dominated by contradiction and obscurity.” Such bland remarks could apply to Lear as well as to Prometheus Bound or The Bald Soprano.

6. All Shakespeare references are from the Complete Works, ed. G. B. Harrison (New York, 1952); following the conventional references are numbers indicating the Through Line Numbering System of The Norton Facsimile: The First Folio of Shakespeare, ed. Charlton Hinman (New York, 1968), as explained on p. xxiv of that edition.

7. William G. McCollom, “The Role of Wit in Much Ado About Nothing,” Shakespeare Quarterly, XIX (1968), 165, observes the apparent disunity (“the main strands of action do not at first seem very well joined”) but finds that unity is achieved through wit, which is “organic” (166). Charles T. Prouty, The Sources of Much Ado About Nothing (New Haven, 1950), states that through his “creative reinterpretation of his sources” and the “recurrent device of overhearing Shakespeare secures a unity of tone, exactly as he had secured a unity of idea by emphasizing the essential realism of the characters in both plots” (pp. 16, 64).

8. James Smith, “Much Ado About Nothing,” Scrutiny, XIII (1946), 246.

9. Northrop Frye, A Natural Perspective (New York, 1965), pp. 46, 119, 136-137.

10. T. W. Craik, “Much Ado About Nothing,” Scrutiny, XIX (1953), 315.

11. At a recent London performance the audience did laugh nervously at “Kill Claudio.” They were not schoolboys (often one's fellow spectators at English Shakespeare performances) but adults—probably tourists. Their response may have been naive, but it did betray the fact that the line arouses emotion: the uncomfortable giggle was their way of expressing shocked outrage. Like most people, they were not familiar with the play or with Shakespeare's problem comedies generally. The alarming words took them by surprise. In a more recent television production, the great Maggie Smith spoke the lines with appropriate seriousness and menace. However, half the cast spoke dialect, sounding like Sicilian gangsters, and Don John was played as a leering buffoon in Regency costume. The director thus achieved a fair consistency of tone (frenetic gaiety) but only by doing violence to Shakespeare's poetry.

12. Lawrence, p. 4. In dealing with Troilus, Traversi speaks of the “emotional ambiguity” in that problem play (An Approach, p. 63). I think he means the same thing as I do by my “ethical ambiguity” or “imbalance.”

13. Kerby Neill, “More Ado About Claudio: An Acquittal for the Slandered Groom,” Shakespeare Quarterly, III (1952), 91, calls him “a realistic young Elizabethan seeking a good match according to the mercenary standards of his age.” Barbara Everett, “Much Ado About Nothing” in Essays in Shakespeare Criticism, ed. J. L. Calderwood and H. E. Toliver (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1970), p. 279, says that he is making his choice on the basis of “female good looks plus paternal income.” These and other critics naturally draw parallels between Claudio and Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice. They go on to point out that Benedick is similarly venal when he says that if he should ever marry, “rich she shall be” (II. iii. 31; 861-862). However, Benedick is not talking about Beatrice here; the love affair has not yet begun. Prouty, p. 51, insists upon the “historical” reading, while admitting that Much Ado comes dangerously close to the problem plays All's Well and Measure for Measure. However, he will not admit the play to the category because it involves “the non-serious presentation of a realistic situation” instead of “the serious presentation of the same thing.” He admits that the denunciation is “unpleasant and even brutal” to the modern reader, but “to Shakespeare's audience, fully cognizant of arranged marriages, there was no such reaction” (p. 62). He does not deal with Benedick's challenge as a piece of serious and ugly realism.

14. Smith, p. 244.

15. Frye, p. 63.

16. In “Much Ado About Something,” Shakespeare Quarterly, XV (1964), 152, Walter N. King observes: “Friar Francis' scheme is equally ineffectual with Claudio and Don Pedro.” McCollom, p. 167, adds Margaret to those untouched by the horrifying events: “After the rejection of her mistress, we see [her] enjoying herself in a bawdy dialogue with Benedick, for all the world as if it were still Act I.” Denzell D. Smith, “The Command ‘Kill Claudio’ in Much Ado About Nothing,” English Language Notes, IV (1967), 183, observes that “The command makes clear that love is a powerful agent for virtue” and asserts that “it works to secure honor and truth.” There is really no basis for this claim: the challenge of Claudio by Benedick does not “secure” anything for any of the characters in the play.

17. The Mueschkes, p. 62, claim that the recantation scene has “lyrical intensity” as a “requiem masque”; I deny the first (a matter of interpretation of the tone of the poetry, I suppose) and I do not understand the second.

18. Frye, pp. 152-153.