Much Ado About Nothing

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. The idea of class, especially as it relates to sex, is an important theme in the play, which was probably written a little before 1600. What do you know about the classes of Elizabethan England? How did the upper and lower classes interact with one another?

This question connects to the theme of Sex and Class.

Teaching Suggestion: Elizabethan England was divided into a few socioeconomic classes, with the hereditary nobility at the top, gentry and merchants in the middle, and peasantry at the bottom. These classes determined virtually every aspect of a person’s life, from their occupation to the way they dressed. Since people were generally born into their class, there were limited opportunities for social mobility. The bulk of people’s social relationships were also formed within their social class: It was not common or desirable for a noble, for example, to marry a commoner or a peasant. In Much Ado About Nothing, the interconnected themes of Sex and Class are at the heart of the characters’ conflicts and interactions.

• This article from the National Portrait Gallery gives an overview of the social structure of Elizabethan England with examples from the gallery.
• This video features a discussion on the Shakespeare Authorship Question, a controversy that bears on the issue of social class in Elizabethan England.

2. Most of Shakespeare’s comedies, like most comedies of his period, revolved around themes of love and marriage. What was marriage like in Shakespeare’s time? Consider what you know about marriage in Europe in the 16th or 17th centuries. How were ideas about marriage back then similar to modern ideas about marriage? How were they different?

This question connects to the themes of Sex and Class and Love and Pride.

Teaching Suggestion: Much like today, there were many different approaches to marriage in early modern Europe. Arranged marriages were common, especially among the upper classes, but some people also married for love. In the Christian society of early modern Europe, ideas of sexual “purity” (especially for women) were considered extremely important, and it was expected that a woman would not engage in sexual activity throughout her courtship.

• This article from the Folger Shakespeare Library discusses courtship and marriage in early modern England.
• This brief article discusses what we know about Shakespeare’s own wife, the mysterious Anne Hathaway.

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the text.

How would you define the word “love”? Think about how you characterize romantic love and the different ways of demonstrating romantic love. Why is jealousy so strongly connected with love, and what are the potential pitfalls that jealousy can cause?

Teaching Suggestion: Students may reflect on their own personal experiences, but you can also urge students to think about the way love is represented in literature and other popular media (e.g., novels, romantic comedies, pop songs, etc.).