Much Ado About Nothing: Little Humor
The happy resolution of Claudio and Hero’s stormy courtship in Much Ado About Nothing is the primary reason for classifying the play as a comedy, but the scenes involving the young lovers contain little humor. Claudio and Hero are essentially static and stereotypical characters, creating no comedic moments on their own. Nevertheless, they are comedic simply because they are not tragic – their struggle to overcome the obstacles preventing their happiness is successful. Despite the destructive lies concocted by Don John and his follower, Borachio, Claudio and Hero’s relationship triumphs and they can be married at the end of the play. Reconciliation and unity are the elements of their comedy; functional but not humorous. For authentic humor we look elsewhere, to the witty verbal exchanges between Beatrice and Benedick and the ineptitude of Dogberry and his companion, Verges.
The "merry war" (1.1.62) between Beatrice and Benedick constitutes the verbal and intellectual comedic elements in the play. Their witty repartee begins in the first scene:
Benedick: What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?
Beatrice: Is it possible disdain should die while she hath
such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick?
Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come
in her presence.
Benedick: Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I
am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I
would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard
heart; for, truly, I love none.
Beatrice: A dear happiness to women: they would else have
been troubled with a pernicious suitor (1.1.123-136)
While this quick, clever banter delights the audience, it also acts as a diversion, detracting from the escalation of hostility amongst the other characters.
Like Beatrice and Benedick, Dogberry and his assistant, Verges, contribute to the verbal comedic elements in the play; however, their low-comedy is far removed from the cerebral comedy of the warring lovers. Dogberry’s misunderstanding and subsequent destruction of the English language is a source of hilarity throughout the play:
Sexton: Which be the malefactors?
Dogberry: Marry, that am I and my partner.
Verges: Nay, that's certain; we have the exhibition to examine. (4.2.4-7)
In addition to his unique use of the language, Dogberry's unique misuse of logic befuddles everyone except Verges. Thus the comedic effect is further enhanced:
Verges: If you hear a child cry in the night, you must call to the nurse and bid her still it.
Watchman: How if the nurse be asleep and will not hear us?
Dogberry: Why, then, depart in peace, and let the child wake
her with crying; for the ewe that will not hear her lamb when it baes will never
answer a calf when he bleats.
Verges: 'Tis very true. (3.3.69-77)
Dogberry’s ridiculous mistakes are, of course, amusing in their own right, but they also serve to underscore aspects of his personality which are themselves humorous: his self-importance and desire to impress. To the audience, his aspirations to rise above his class are comical because he fails so miserably. Dogberry is not even aware that he is failing and so it is safe for us to laugh.
Dogberry’s incongruous vocabulary becomes the primary comic relief in the play and provides an important contrast to the troubles encountered by Claudio and Hero. Just as Beatrice and Benedick’s banter detaches us emotionally, Dogberry stops our lamenting over Claudio and Hero’s grave situation by preoccupying us; we are busy with the mental exercise of searching for his absurd mistakes. If the farcical comedy of Dogberry and his men were not present, nothing would exist to combat the evil Don John and his cohorts perpetrate, nothing to reaffirm the fact that everything will work out.
The uniting of Claudio and Hero joyously concludes the play, satisfying the requirements of a comedy. However, it is the wit of Beatrice and Benedick, and the buffoonery of Dogberry and Verges that captivates us, prevents our worry, and makes us laugh.
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