November 26 th and 27 th 5 th Class of the New Quarter

1. November 26thand 27th5thClass of the New Quarter • Attendance • Get new words for the weeks vocabulary • Discuss the first two acts of Much Ado in detail. • Begin discussion of the project coming up. You will be doing independent projects. • Read Act 1 Scene 3 and Act 2 Scene 1 in class together. • HW: Do note cards for the vocabulary. We will be having a quiz on Acts One and perhaps two on Friday the 30th and Monday the 3rd so study for that as well.

2. What about this English Stuff? If we accept that Shakespeare’s plays are worthy of being studied four hundred and twenty years after they are written, we have to acknowledge that they deal with universal themes. So far, we have read the first two acts. In those acts, we have introduced the idea of A man’s jealousy over his brother’s success. A young man afraid of telling a girl he loves her. Two people who have some kind of feeling for each other arguing. Friends teasing each other about being in love. A man who says he will help his friend with his love life. The jealous man trying to ruin his brother’s happiness. So why do we have to set this in Elizabethan times? When and where else could we set this? How would that affect the performance?

3. Act 1 Scene 3 Characters – Don John, Conrad and Borachio Conrad wants his boss/friend Don John to relax and accept Don Pedro’s hospitality. He feels if Don John gets close to Don Pedro, when the time comes he will be able to get his revenge on him. Don John says he has to act the way he feels. He will be deceitful if it will serve a purpose, but not just to be nice. Borachio has heard Don Pedro’s plan to woo Hero for Claudio and Don John thinks they may be a way to use this information to turn Claudio against his close friend Don Pedro. Causing Claudio and Don Pedro pain will make Don John happy.

4. Act 2 Scene 1 – Part 1 Characters – Leonato, Antonio, Beatrice, Hero, Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedict, Borachio This is the masquerade scene. Everyone is in disguise. This helps Don John with his plan to hurt Claudio and Don Pedro. Hero and Beatrice talk about what he perfect man would be like. They think that someone who is half way between Don John and Benedict would be great. This shows that Beatrice does think that Benedict has good qualities. Beatrice says again that she will never marry, she can see a church by daylight. This means she can avoid it. The party goers come along and Beatrice and Benedict dance together. Benedict is disguised and Beatrice repeatedly insults him. We do not know whether Beatrice knows it is Benedict. What do you think would be better? We then move to Don John trying to cause problems with Claudio. Claudio is disguised and Don John pretends that he believes Claudio is Benedict. Don John says that he knows Don Pedro is wooing Hero for himself and that he wants Claudio/Benedict to convince Don Pedro not to do it.

5. Act 2 – Scene 1 Part 2 This plants the idea that Don Pedro has betrayed Claudio, which he has not. Benedict tells Claudio that Don Pedro would not betray him like that and it becomes clear that Don Pedro succeeded in wooing Hero for Claudio. Benedict sees Beatrice coming and leaves after saying how angry she made him when they were dancing next to each other. Beatrice comes along and it becomes clear that she and Benedict may have dated before and it ended badly. Claudio wants to get married that day, but Leonato says it will take a week to get everything together, so they decide to fool Benedict and Beatrice into falling in love. This is how they will occupy the time between this dance and the wedding.