Shakespeare's Greatness: Much Ado About Nothing, and King Lear

William Shakespeare is the world’s pre-eminent dramatist whose plays range from tragedies to tragic comedies, etc. His general style of writing is often comparable to several of his contemporaries, like Romeo and Juliet is based on Arthur Brooke’s narrative poem, “The tragical history of Romeo and Juliet”. But Shakespeare’s works express a different range of human experience where his characters command the sympathy of audiences and also are complex as well as human in nature. Shakespeare makes the protagonist’s character development central to the plot.

The Tragedy of King Lear has many important themes. One major theme concerns "nothing." The main focus around the discussion of "nothing" is that "nothing" is a many things. Nothing is what binds everything.

Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare "Much Ado About Nothing" in fact has a great deal to say about love and marriage. What is Shakespeare trying to tell us about relationships between men and women? Compare the play's treatment of love with that in "Silas Marner" In "Much Ado About Nothing" there are many different forms of love and relationships that range from youthful infatuation to parental love. Shakespeare makes many comments about men and women and shows the audience a variety of both romantic and platonic relationships.

In Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare uses Claudio and Hero to showcase the original ways of marriage and uses Benedick and Beatrice in order to show and untraditional way of love and marriage.

In Much Ado About Nothing, at the masked party, Claudio believes Don Pedro has wooed Hero for himself, and Claudio says, “...Let every eye negotiate for itself, and trust no agent; for beauty is a witch against whose charms faith melteth into blood this is an accident of hourly proof, which I mistrusted not. Farewell, therefore, Hero” (Shakespeare 23). Don John’s first attempt of mischief almost succeeded and could have foiled Claudio’s plan to woo Hero. This was a close call, and if Claudio had just left in anger or sadness, this problem would not have been resolved. However, Don John and his lackeys try again. Just as Claudio and Hero are about to get married, Claudio says, “But fare thee well, most foul, most fair; farewell thou impiety and impious purity. For thee I’ll lock up all the gates of love, and on my eyelids shall conjecture hang to turn all beauty into thoughts of harm, and never shall it be more gracious” (Shakespeare 68). Claudio believes Hero is being unfaithful when it is all a trick. At this point, the wedding is ruined and the conflict of the story has been set in motion. Don John has succeeded, and this has dramatically influenced the conflict in the

There is no denying that Shakespeare is a definitive playwright. He has presented us with classic works that have set the precedent for drama and the theatre. Among Shakespeare’s more notable plays are his tragedies. In the tragedy his protagonists are often given flaws in their character and hence, are suitably named tragic heroes. The downfall of these protagonists is often a result of their own character flaws and unfortunately, they suffer a doomed and unhappy ending. While the tragic hero is flawed they must also be honorable and worthy of the audience’s understanding and sympathy. On a quest for righteousness the tragic hero often goes through immense suffering which is why the audience can feel bad for him. For the most

It is no revolutionary statement to say that William Shakespeare wrote some of the greatest plays of all time. This is accepted by everyone from high schoolers to experts as fact. But everyone is always wondering, what makes them great? Well, at the heart of every great Shakespeare play is a well written plot. But how can one man churn out all these plays he’s written, and still have new content in each one? Aren’t they all the same story to some extent? As Lindsay Smith writes, “Many Shakespeare plays, like most typical Renaissance plays, are divided into scenes and acts. There are five acts and anywhere from three to five scenes per act.” So his plays can’t be all that different, right? This statement will be examined after taking a

Shakespeare is a world renowned playwright that is famous for writing some of the best plays in all of history; It is “Much Ado About Nothing” that greatly captures shakespeare’s ideas of romance with a comical turn. The entire story is revolved around the romance of the characters of Hero and Claudio. What was supposed to be a peaceful wedding for Claudio and fair Hero was taken for a turn for the worst due to the mischievous trickery of Don John. The fause acquisition of Hero lead to her false death making for a stunning resurrection later on her wedding day. With the Wedding of Hero and Claudio came the proposal of Benedict to Beatrise soon later, due to more trickery.

Theatre has changed in over the years. Back then plays catered to the audience and to please the king. However, nowadays, plays are produced for money and audiences. In Shakespeare’s time, a lot of plays were written to center around politics and retelling of historical England and Europe. Shakespeare’s plays are written in prose. Shakespeare’s plays were also performed at playhouses around England. Today’s theatre shares many similarities with the production from Shakespeare’s time, however they markedly differ. There are indeed many differences, for example, language, gender roles, and venue. These differences would change the retelling of Much Ado About Nothing in Shakespeare times because of its modern production.

A constant theme in Shakespearean comedies, mistaken identity comes into play in Much Ado About Nothing as well. The confusion in Claudio and Hero’s love story is brought about by Margaret being mistaken for Hero, leading to Hero’s humiliation on her wedding day by her prospective groom, Claudio. Beatrice rambling out her dislike to Benedick about himself occurs because his identity is masked in the ball. The happy ending of Claudio and Hero is provided with a twist for the audience were instead of Beatrice, Hero’s cousin, the ‘dead’ Hero itself takes the position of the

In comparison, though Claudio is genuinely attracted to Hero, his love seems fickle, jealous and immature. Claudio, a ‘sensible’ conventional wooer, first verifies Hero’s social and financial compatibility (“Hath Leonato any son...?”), but their relationship lacks trust and instinctive understanding of each other. This is the reason Claudio believes Don John’s intrigue, though Hero, being sweet and submissive, remains true to him regardless of his treatment of her. Their union therefore seems less sound than Beatrice and Benedick’s and less acceptable to a modern audience, which is probably why, in the 2005 Shakespeare Retold version of Much Ado, Hero declines Claude’s second offer.

In the play, King Lear by Shakespeare, sight is used as an indication of perception and judgement. Kent and Cordelia seem to be one of the few in the play who act rationally and do not respond with blind praise to King Lear’s absurd requests. They are the only truly loyal people in King Lear’s court, yet he fails to see that and casts them off as traitors. Their act of treason was their worry for King Lear, when no one else would dare point it out. King Lear’s immense autocratic power blinded him from seeing the true nature of his subjects and the state of affairs of his kingdom. As Kent suggested, King Lear needed to “see better” (1.1.180). His vision of his subjects and daughters was blinded by his need for constant appraisal. The second someone dared to say anything that didn’t please him, he lost all rationality. Similarly, Gloucester is unable to see the true natures of his sons, wrongfully trusting one son over the other.

In the world of Shakespeare’s King Lear, the themes of justice and injustice pervade. Viewers are challenged by the dichotomy between man’s inherent goodness and man’s inherent evil. The concepts of justice and injustice are always rooted in the presumption of imbalances of some kind, and this is certainly the case in King Lear. It is littered with imbalances throughout, including the struggles between young and old, good and evil, & rich and poor. The play can be seen as a series of trials eventually ending in what some may regard as justice and others may regard as grotesque nihilism (Snyder 3) at its finest. Whether or not there is any justice in the world of King Lear leads to the question of divine justice and its role in the play.

King Lear is one of Shakespeare's more complex plays and within it many different themes are addressed and explored. King Lear is the somewhat unfortunate vehicle that Shakespeare uses to explore many of these themes creating a complex character including the roles of a father, king, friend and adversary.

I decided to re-read King Lear, Act One for my reflective essay. When re-reading Act One I decided to try and find a different translation because I believed that finding one would help fill any ideas I missed while reading the first time. Which lead to finding an online version of King Lear written as part of the No Fear Shakespeare collection, which I previously used and loved, but sadly had forgotten about. After I read that translation I realize how much I actually misunderstood and downplayed Act One by connecting it with my limited knowledge about the time period. Which caused me to realize that I was manipulating the way I viewed the act the first time I read it into something that I believed was in Lear’s time, socially acceptable.