What's Happening in England?This play falls solidly in the middle of Shakespeare's career. Merchant of Venice came right before, and Henry V and then Julius Caesar after. Shakespeare would then go on to write his four great tragedies: Lear, Macbeth, Hamlet, and Othello. Much Ado is very much a play in which Shakespeare works out themes and character types he wants to use again: villains who never apologize, familial relationships--in particular bonds between paternal figures and daughters. There's even a little bit of Hamlet in Benedick.
The play was likely written between 1598 and 1599 and first published in 1600. At this time, nervousness about succession grew to a frenzy as Queen Elizabeth grew older without appointing an heir. In 1599, satire was banned in writing--leaving all of the satirizing up to the theaters. Also in 1599, the Globe was built. |
Historical Tidbits
The Watch• England employed an amateur policing system.
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An Oath• An oath was of massive importance and, for the most part, considered unbreakable.
• Not everyone could read, and the supplies to write things down were more limited, so a spoken oath was given much more weight. • In Elizabeth England, legally, a promise to marry someone in the present (basically your modern-day marriage proposal) was legally binding. You were married. Secret marriages were a big issue in England. |