The Use of Eavesdropping in William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing

The Use of Eavesdropping in William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing William Shakespeare is one of, if not the, best play writers in the

world. He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564 and then moved to

London as a young man, he died at the age of fifty two. In his

lifetime he wrote more than thirty seven plays of all genres.

Shakespeare liked to play on words in a large amount of his plays, he

does this by having word battles between his characters.

"Much ado about nothing" is a play set back in Shakespearian times. It

is a romance and also a comedy. It was first published in 1600. There

are two main plots in the play, both based upon the theme of love. The

whole play on baiting between Benedick and Beatrice is one plot and

the other, the deceit between Claudio and Hero which is in fact

nebulous.

Throughout the play, Shakespeare uses several dramatic devices of

eavesdropping. Act 2:3 and Act 3:1 are two such scences in which this

occurs. The whole eavesdropping technique is based around Benedick and

Beatrice. Firstly close friends of Benedick including Claudio, Don

pedro and Leonato try to misdirect Benedick into thinking Beatice is

secretly in love with him. The same thing happens in act 3:1 as

Beatrice`s close friends do the same thing but in a slightly different

way. Benedick is tricked very cunningly by his friends as they use

such techniques as insulting him, "He would make a sport of it and