Benedick Love Analysis

In Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare, Benedick displays his shift away from being too prideful for commitment to wanting to commit to loving Beatrice in act five scene two lines 26-41. Through his allusions to tragic love stories, use of homonyms, and song and poetry, Benedick shows a transition from bachelorhood to marriage because of his desire to impress Beatrice while also conveying his inward fears of commitment.

Benedick alludes to one Greek myth and one Shakespearian story about men in love who experience complications. These allusions show Benedick’s difficulties in switching between wanting to always be a bachelor to wanting to be married. The first allusion Benedick makes is to a man named Leander, who swam across a strait

The word “marry” is an expression meaning “certainly” and to unite in marriage. He is using the word marry in the context as an expression of wanting to create a poem to please Beatrice but that he cannot connect words together. But it also uses the other meaning of the word because his desire is to marry Beatrice.

Despite his desires to marry, Benedick dejectedly ends the passage by saying he “cannot woo” (5.2, 41). The word “woo” is used both as gaining someone’s love, and seeking support. Benedick wants to both impress, or seeks the support, of Beatrice through his poetry he is trying to create for her; as well as wanting Beatrice to fall in love with him. Benedick’s diction conveys his shift between a person of pride, and one of submitting to love, but also how he is not clearly on one side or the other at this time, through the use of

By using song and poetry to express his feelings for Beatrice it shows how he has changed from being too proud to be committed to a woman to being a man who wants to marry Beatrice. Benedick sings, “The god of love, That sits above, And knows me, and knows me, How pitiful I deserve” (5.2, 26-30). His song shows vulnerability by saying that he does not deserve being loved by Beatrice, and his admittance of being unworthy to be loved by Beatrice shows Benedick giving up his pride because of love.

Then Benedick goes on to confess that he is trying to create verse but “cannot show it in rhyme” (5.2, 36). Poetry is a form of deep emotional self-expression, by Benedick attempting to speak in verse it displays his commitment to his change in personality. Previously Benedick has combatted all suggestions of him becoming married but now, through poetry, he shows his transformation out of his bachelorhood mentality. Through the use two art forms, poetry and song, Benedick expresses his change in