Much Ado About Nothing 1 Flashcards
(63 cards)
What is the difference between static and dynamic characters?
Static characters do not change, while dynamic characters change throughout the piece of literature.
What is the difference between round and flat characters?
Round characters are characters that we know a lot about, while flat characters we only know basic details about.
Correct and Identify: Adieu, be vigitant, I beseech you.
Malapropism: vigitant
Should be: vigilant
Significance of title
Ado means great confusion and noise, usually unwarranted. In Shakespeare’s time, nothing and noting sounded the same. The title, then, could be paraphrased as “Great Confusion Because of Eavesdropping or Observing.”
Governor of Messina, Hero’s father, Beatrice’s uncle, and the host for the play’s events.
Leonato
Leonato’s only daughter, in love with Claudio and wrongfully accused of being unchaste.
Hero
Leonato’s niece and Hero’s cousin. She is admired for her wit and intelligence. She is comically tricked into falling in love with Benedick.
Beatrice
Hero’s gentlewoman, flirts with borachio
Margaret
Prince of Aragon and close friend of Benedick and Claudio.
Don Pedro
Don Pedro’s illegitimate brother. A villain who ostracizes himself.
Don John
Don Pedro’s illegitimate brother. A villain who ostracizes himself.
Borachio
A comic hero with a dazzling wit who has vowed never to marry. He is “tricked” into falling in love with Beatrice.
Benedick
A young man and friend of Benedick. He quickly falls in love with Hero and becomes engaged to marry her.
Claudio
A local constable who brings the truth to light despite his ignorance and comic blunders.
Dogberry
Dogberry’s sidekick and deputy constable.
Verges
The local judge
Sexton
Believes Hero is innocent, hatches the plot to clear her name, and performs the marriage ceremony of Claudio and Hero.
Friar Francis
“There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her; they never meet but there’s a skirmish of wit between them.”
Speaker: Leonato
Significance: about Benedick and Beatrice’s relationship
“Well, as time shall try: ‘In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.’”
Speaker: Don Pedro
Significance: says when teasing Benedick about how he will soon be married
“I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain.”
Speaker: Don John
Significance: admits he is not an honest man but he also freely admits that he is a villain.
“He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me; and he that is less than a man, I am not for him.”
Speaker: Beatrice
Significance: dislike of beards symbolically stands for her resistance to men in general
“Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love: therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.”
Speaker: Claudio
Significance: says this when he believes that the Prince is wooing Hero for himself
“Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much.”
Speaker: Claudio
Significance: speechless over his love for hero
“One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace.”
Speaker: Benedick
Significance: about how he will never fall in love/get married
