Comedic Conventions

1. Comedic Conventions The opposition between the old and the young Love as the motivating force The importance of scheming / plotting / deceit / trickery / practices Role reversals Confusion in the middle scenes The importance of characters achieving self-knowledge The experience of being fooled The need to understand and change The overcoming of differences Marriage and the promise of new life.

2. Much Ado about Nothing (Noting) • Much Ado is based in part on several versions, both Italian and English adaptations of Lodovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso.  • The story was very popular during Shakespeare's time being the subject of several theatrical adaptations.  • Nothing and Noting were pronounced the same way in Elizabethan England so the title can also be understood as much ado about noting = noticing disguises, truths, your own true self, etc.

3. Taking place in Messina, Sicily, the story picks up after a war between two feuding brothers Don Pedro of Aragon and his illegitimate brother Don John.  Don John has made an easy peace and their armies return home to Messina and are greeted by the town governor, Leonato. 

4. Historical Context: Humors & Cockolding In Greek, Medieval, and Renaissance thought, the traditional four elements form the basis for a theory of medicine known as the four humors. Each of the humors were associated with  physical and mental characteristics, and could, moreover, be combined for more complex personality types:. The result is a system that provides a quite elaborate classification of types of personality.

5. Humors Illustrated Violent, Short-Tempered, Ambitious Introspective, Sentimental Amorous, Happy, Optimistic Sluggish, Cowardly

6. Cuckold = a man who has been cheated on • Many of the jokes in the play revolve around the term cuckold. • Cuckold jokes are all about the emasculation of the man, not so much the woman’ infidelity. Remember, in this era, the wife was the man’s property or servant and was thus expected to obey him. • Cuckold derives from cuckoo , alluding to the parasitic habit of the female bird in changing its mate frequently and laying its eggs in other birds’ nests. • It also comes from a farming practice where roosters that had been castrated were signaled with one of their spurs (orig. from their legs) being placed on their head, like a horn. • Thus, there are many jokes about being cuckolded with horns.

7. Themes to Look For • Wit & Puns • Chastity vs. Promiscuity • Jealously • Appearance vs. Reality • Second Chances • Masked Identities