Understanding Shakespeare: Much Ado about Nothing

by Robert A. Albano

The comedy "Much Ado about Nothing" breaks a familiar dramatic convention of the Renaissance. Typically, a writer would direct the central focus of a comedy on the young lovers of the play, and the best lines and most pleasing poetry of the work would be spoken by those characters. In "Much Ado," however, the young lovers of the play, Claudio and Hero, are rather bland and uninteresting. Claudio, in fact, is even tongue-tied and requires the assistance of his prince, Don Pedro, to speak on...