Love in Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare

Love in Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare

What is love? Many people would answer this question differently. People fall in love, get married, and form families with children, pets and houses. Every family differs from one another. The reason that no identical families exist in this world is that people understand love in their own ways.

There is no correct answer describing what love really is. That is why this topic is so frequently discussed and analyzed by psychologists, writers, and just by common people in personal conversations.

In this essay I would like to emphasize different ideas of how love is understood and discussed in literature. This topic has been immortal. One can notice that throughout the whole history writers have always been returning to this subject no matter what century people lived in or what their nationality was.

In the comedy Much Ado about Nothing written by William Shakespeare in 1600, love is the major subject discussed by the author, which is presented to the readers. The author does not give a direct answer to this question - he lets the reader find it and think about it from his or her own point of view.

There are two love relationships developing throughout the plot. The reader witnesses "love from the first sight" between Claudio and Hero, and laughs at Beatrice's scorns and attitude towards Bene*censored*. However, as the plot develops, these relationships develop too. Although they change, there is one thing that remains constant - the contrast between these relationships.

"Love may grow soft or even rotten (Claudio's "rotten orange" at the altar is more nearly a description of himself at the moment than it is of Hero), or, at the other extreme, it may harden ...

... middle of paper ...

... look into the depth of the play, the reader understands that it was not real love reigning in the lives of the young people. Even the name of the comedy confirms this idea. Much ado about nothing - that was the best description of the development of the events. "Every principal person has become involved in an error," said Bertrand Evans. The final marriage was an error, too. Although people have different opinions about real love, there is one thing that is always common about this subject: love comes once, it never leaves, never fades, never causes doubts. When two people experience real love, they fly in the skies, but at the same time they are always ready to stand firm on the ground of every day life. Hero and Claudio never stand firm, when Bene*censored* and Beatrice never fly. Although love is the main topic of the play, it never appears in the plot.