Much Ado About Nothing (Arden Shakespeare: Third Series)

by William Shakespeare

  Harbage, Alfred. William Shakespeare: A Reader's Guide (1963).

  Howard, Jean E. Shakespeare's Art of Orchestration: Stage Technique and Audience Response (1984).

  Jones, Emrys. Scenic Form in Shakespeare (1971).

  Lenz, Carolyn Ruth Swift, Gayle Greene, and Carol Thomas Neely, eds. The Woman's Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare (1980).

  Novy, Marianne. Love's Argument: Gender Relations in Shakespeare (1984).

  Rose, Mark. Shakespearean Design (1972).

  Scragg, Leah. Discovering Shakespeare's Meaning (1994).

  ------. Shakespeare's "Mouldy Tales": Recurrent Plot Motifs in Shakespearean Drama (1992).

  Traub, Valerie. Desire and Anxiety: Circulations of Sexuality in Shakespearean Drama (1992).

  Traversi, D. A. An Approach to Shakespeare, 2 vols. (3rd rev. ed,1968-69).

  Vickers, Brian. The Artistry of Shakespeare's Prose (1968).

  Wells, Stanley. Shakespeare: A Dramatic Life (1994).

  Wright, George T. Shakespeare's Metrical Art (1988).

  7. The Comedies

  Barber, C. L. Shakespeare's Festive Comedy (1959; discusses Love's Labor's Lost, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Twelfth Night).

  Barton, Anne. The Names of Comedy (1990).

  Berry, Ralph. Shakespeare's Comedy: Explarations in Form (1972).

  Bradbury, Malcolm, and David Palmer, eds. Shakespearean Comedy (1972).

  Bryant, J. A., Jr. Shakespeare and the Uses of Comedy (1986).

  Carroll, William. The Metamorphoses of Shakespearean Comedy (1985).

  Champion, Larry S. The Evolution of Shakespeare's Comedy (1970).

  Evans, Bertrand. Shakespeare's Comedies (1960).

  Frye, Northrop. Shakespearean Comedy and Romance (1965).

  Leggatt, Alexander. Shakespeare's Comedy of Love (1974).

  Miola, Robert S. Shakespeare and Classical Comedy: The Influence of Plautus and Terence (1994).

  Nevo, Ruth. Comic Transformations in Shakespeare (1980).

  Ornstein, Robert. Shakespeare's Comedies: From Roman Farce to Romantic Mystery (1986).

  Richman, David. Laughter, Pain, and Wonder: Shakespeare's Comedies and the Audience in the Theater (1990).

  Salingar, Leo. Shakespeare and the Traditions of Comedy (1974).

  Slights, Camille Wells. Shakespeare's Comic Commonwealths (1993).

  Waller, Gary, ed. Shakespeare's Comedies (1991).

  Westlund, Joseph. Shakespeare's Reparative Comedies: A Psychoanalytic View of the Middle Plays (1984).

  Williamson, Marilyn. The Patriarchy of Shakespeare's Comedies (1986).

  8. The Romances (Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, The Two Noble Kinsmen)

  Adams, Robert M. Shakespeare: The Four Romances (1989).

  Felperin, Howard. Shakespearean Romance (1972).

  Frye, Northrop. A Natural Perspective: The Development of Shakespearean Comedy and Romance (1965).

  Mowat, Barbara. The Dramaturgy of Shakespeare's Romances (1976).

  Warren, Roger. Staging Shakespeare's Late Plays (1990).

  Young, David. The Heart's Forest: A Study of Shakespeare's Pastoral Plays (1972).

  9. The Tragedies

  Bradley, A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy (1904).

  Brooke, Nicholas. Shakespeare's Early Tragedies (1968).

  Champion, Larry. Shakespeare's Tragic Perspective (1976).

  Drakakis, John, ed. Shakespearean Tragedy (1992).

  Evans, Bertrand. Shakespeare's Tragic Practice (1979).

  Everett, Barbara. Young Hamlet: Essays on Shakespeare's Tragedies (1989).

  Foakes, R. A. Hamlet versus Lear: Cultural Politics and Shakespeare's Art (1993).

  Frye, Northrop. Fools of Time: Studies in Shakespearean Tragedy (1967).

  Harbage, Alfred, ed. Shakespeare: The Tragedies (1964).

  Mack, Maynard. Everybody's Shakespeare: Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies (1993).

  McAlindon, T. Shakespeare's Tragic Cosmos (1991).

  Miola, Robert S. Shakespeare and Classical Tragedy: The Influence of Seneca (1992).

  ----.Shakespeare's Rome (1983).

  Nevo, Ruth. Tragic Form in Shakespeare (1972).

  Rackin, Phyllis. Shakespeare's Tragedies (1978).

  Rose, Mark, ed. Shakespeare's Early Tragedies: A Collection of Critical Essays (1995).

  Rosen, William. Shakespeare and the Craft of Tragedy (1960).

  Snyder, Susan. The Comic Matrix of Shakespeare's Tragedies (1979).

  Wofford, Susanne. Shakespeare's Late Tragedies: A Collection of Critical Essays (1996).

  Young, David. The Action to the Word: Structure and Style in Shakespearean Tragedy (1990).

  ------. Shakespeare's Middle Tragedies: A Collection of Critical Essays (1993).

  10. The Histories

  Blanpied, John W. Time and the Artist in Shakespeare's English Histories (1983).

  Campbell, Lily B. Shakespeare's "Histories": Mirrors of Elizabethan Policy (1947).

  Champion, Larry S. Perspective in Shakespeare's English Histories (1980).

  Hodgdon, Barbara. The End Crowns All: Closure and Contradiction in Shakespeare's History (1991).

  Holderness, Graham. Shakespeare Recycled: The Making of Historical Drama (1992).

  --------, ed. Shakespeare's History Plays: "Richard II" to "Henry V" (1992):

  Leggatt, Alexander. Shakespeare's Political Drama: The History Plays and the Roman Plays (1988).

  Ornstein, Robert. A Kingdom for a Stage: The Achievement of Shakespeare's History Plays (1972).

  Rackin, Phyllis. Stages of History: Shakespeare's English Chronicles (1990).

  Saccio, Peter. Shakespeare's English Kings: History, Chronicle, and Drama (1977).

  Tillyard, E. M. W. Shakespeare's History Plays (1944).

  Velz, John W., ed. Shakespeare's English Histories: A Quest for Form and Genre (1996).

  11. Much Ado About Nothing

  In addition to the references given at the end of Much Ado About Nothing on Stage and Screen (p. 152), and those listed in Section 7, The Comedies, the following titles are recommended.

  Berger, Harry. "Against the Sink-a-Pace: Sexual and Family Politics in Much Ado About Nothing." Shakespeare Quarterly 33 (1982): 302-13.

  Brown, John Russell, ed. Shakespeare: "Much Ado About Nothing" and "As You Like It": A Casebook (1979).

  Cook, Carol. "The Sign and Semblance of Her Honor: Reading Gender Difference in Much Ado About Nothing. PMLA 101 (1986): 186-202.

  Davis, Walter R., ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of "Much Ado About Nothing " (1969).

  Everett, Barbara. "Much Ado About Nothing: the Unsociable Comedy," in English Comedy. Ed. Michael Cordner, Peter Holland, and John Kerrigan (1994), pp. 68-84.

  Levin, Richard A. Love and Society in Shakespearean Comedy (1985).

  Mulryne, J. R. Shakespeare: "Much Ado About Nothing" (1965).

  Rossiter, A. P. "Angel with Horns" and Other Shakespeare Lectures. Ed. Graham Storey (1961).

  Stevenson, David L. The Love-Game Comedy (1946).

  1 The famous Elirabethan translation (1591) was by the favorite of the Queen, Sir John Harington.

  2 The degree sign (deg) indicates a footnote, which is keyed to the text by line number. Text references are printed in boldface type; the annotation follows in roman type.

  3 His misliking is as sudden as his liking, and at the first zephyr of suspicion he is quick to note that "beauty is a witch /Against whose charms faith melteth into blood" (2.1.177-78). Benedick sees him as a "poor hurt fowl" that will "now... creep into sedges" (2.1.200-01 ).

  4 Another book on Shakespeare waiting to be written is Shakespeare's Short Speeches. Cf. Shylock's "I am content," and the many other examples, increasing as he learns his art, in which a short speech of not more than four words, usually monosyllables, marks a turn in the action or the highest dramatic point of a scene or of a whole play.

  5 Shakespeare does not forget the i
neffectiveness of sage advice. Compare Brabantio's bitter reply to the Duke of Venice (Othello, 1.3. 199-219) or Hamlet's attitude toward the sage counsel of Claudius (1.2.87-120). See also Polonius and Laertes, the Duke of Vienna and Claudio, and the more knowing course of action Ulysses adopts toward both Achilles and Troilus.