1. Explore the evidence for the following theory: Claudio has modeled his idea of love on Petrarchan love poetry.
Agnew, Lashley, Maize, Baird, Schultz, Wrigley

2 Beatrice and Benedick have a "history"; what seems to have gone on between them in the past?

3. Many of Shakespeare's dramas feature a "play within a play"; there are several occasions in Much Ado when the characters participate in informal theatrical activity or performance. How do these scenes contribute to the way the play defines and illustrates the nature of romantic love?
Alberg, Guzman, Staggs, Schmidt, Bailey, Fiess

4. The play is full of puns on the word "Nothing." In Elizabethan English, the word would have been pronounced "noting," thus, the title indicates that the play will involve "Much Ado" (a great fuss) not only about "Nothing" (as in the opposite of "Something"), but also "Much Ado About Noting" -- taking note, playing notes, writing notes, etc. Further adding to the wit of the title is the fact that, while the male sexual organ was referred to in bawdy slang as a man's "thing," the female sexual organ was, by analogy, a woman's "no-thing." Be prepared to discuss the ways in which this and other puns work in the play. Why so much verbal wit in a play about love?
Anderson, Campbell, Eyler, Meyer, Vodraska, Williams
 
5. The play is full of Cupid imagery (see especially 1.1.37-43; 1.1.178; 1.1.241-245; 1.1261-262; and 2.1.380-382). How do various characters use these images and references differently in ways that help to define their characters and/or the nature of love operative in the play?
Crandell, Mueller, Howard, Johnson, Jones, Schnautz

Study Questions for February 8, 1999:  Much Ado About Nothing continued
1.  Beatrice's name means "sacred joy" and conveys something akin to "grace" in the Christian sense, while Benedick's name means "blessed." In Protestant Christian theology, one is blessed, saved by grace, through no merit of one's own. God bestows the gift of unearned grace on sinners out of pure, merciful love, even though they have done nothing to deserve it. How does this concept of redemption enter into the characters' words and actions and help to define their love for each other? And how is romantic love related to spiritual salvation in the play?

2. Christian marriage as it was understood in the Renaissance had three purposes:

A--for childbearing and the raising of children in the Christian faith (to fulfill God's command in Genesis to "be fruitful and multiply" and to supply the world with new Christian souls);
B--for mutual "conversation" (a Renaissance term for "companionship") and help to one another (to fulfill the passage in Genesis where God says, "It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a help meet for him.")
C--as a "remedy for burning"--that is, to prevent fornication and reign in the lustful behavior that would lead the soul into hellfire. (This purpose of marriage is founded on 1 Corinthians 2: 8-9, where St. Paul says that it is best for unmarried Christians to remain virginal, but "if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn").

3.  Keeping in mind that marriage (especially among the aristocracy) was rarely a love-match in Shakespeare's time, and that even the marriage of Claudio and Hero is a socially-arranged match, would you say that the play makes a bid to define love as an essential component of marriage?

4. In the wedding ceremony of both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England during the period when the play was written, brides promised to "love, honor, and obey" their husbands. Explain how the thought of this vow affects Beatrice's attitude toward marriage, and consider how she decides that she can and will take it.

5. Don John is an absolute villain, pure and simple, with no complex motivations except to interfere with others' happiness. How do his malevolent presence and wicked plots contribute to the portrayal of love in the play?