Senior English 243: Shakespeare Name:

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Much Ado About Nothing READING #5: Act 4 (4.1-4.2)

4.1—The Wedding, or “This Looks Not like a Nuptial”

THE ACCUSATION

·  Explain the clever way in which Leonato hopes to correct for Claudio’s initial rejection of the Friar’s opening question, “You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady?” (page 51, from Shakespeare: Five Great Comedies, Dover Publications, 2000).

·  “A Rotten Orange” (52) Why should Claudio use the image of an orange to describe Hero? Write it down and , as you read on, write other words and phrases around it from lines 1-104 which are connected in some way with this image. [from Cambridge School Shakespeare]

1.  What is Claudio’s point in the following: “Behold how like a maid she blushes here! / Oh, what authority and show of truth / Can cunning sin cover itself withal!” (52)

2.  Leonato’s response:

a.  How does Leonato respond in “O Fate! Take not away thy heavy hand! / Death is the fairest cover for her shame / That may be wished for” (54)?

b.  “Why had I not with charitable hand / Took up a beggar’s issue?” (55) How does he reason that caring for a beggar’s child (issue) would have been preferable?

THE PLAN

·  If the Friar’s plan does not work, he suggests that Leonato “may conceal her, / As best befits her wounded reputation” ( ). What specifically does he suggest be done “if it sort not well” (57) (if there is no remorse)?

3.  How will the Friar’s plan “Change slander to remorse” (57)? (What will “fare with Claudio” (57)?)

BEATRICE AND BENEDICK ALONE

4.  Once their mutual love is expressed [“I do love nothing in the world so well as you” (58). “It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as you” (58).], it is threatened in the very same scene. How? And finally, how is it resolved?

4.2—Dogberry (“I am an ass!”) Interrogates Borachio and Conrade

·  Look over Dogberry’s malapropisms in this scene. (Many are noted in your book’s footnotes.) Any favorites?

·  What upsets Dogberry the most in his final speech of the scene?

5.  Dogberry’s interrogation of Borachio and Conrade begins with him accusing each man individually that they are “false knaves” (61). When they each answer that “we are none” (61), how does Dogberry respond?

Critical Thinking—Choose ONE of the following prompts to respond to.

Prompt A: LOGICAL REASONING/MAKING INFERENCES (drawing inferences or conclusions that are supported in or justified by evidence).

Choose one:

(1)  Benedick suspects that the misleader is “John the Bastard, / Whose spirits toil in frame of villainies” (56). If this is something known about Don John, then why would Claudio and Don Pedro given him so much credibility to begin with? Is this a flaw in the play?

(2)  If the Friar’s plan does not work, he suggests that Leonato “may conceal her, / As best befits her wounded reputation / In some reclusive and religious life” (57). Respond to the plan that Hero will have to live secluded in a convent if Claudio doesn’t take her back?

RESPONSE:

Prompt B: APPLYING STANDARDS/JUDGING (judging according to established personal, professional, or social rules or criteria). Beatrice: “O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the marketplace” (59). Three times in 4.1 Beatrice expresses her desire to be a man. Does this yearning speak to today’s gender differences in power and opportunity?

RESPONSE: