Date: 1/12/12 Name
Imagery Analysis (to be turned in on the last day of each play). Do these forms in Word; don’t write them out. Email them to me as attachments when you have completed them.
1. Shakespeare often communicated ideas through figurative language, which he developed from emblems (see the English Emblem Book project at http://emblem.libraries.psu.edu/). His audience learned to recognize and “read” repeated emblems or metaphors. Look for one repeating type of metaphor (sight/blindness, nakedness, gardens/ wilderness, disease, animals, eating and gluttony, nothingness, pearls and wealth, sea-transformation, coinage, printing, acting, color, food, weather, infancy, etc) and write down as many examples as you can as you go through the play from the play. Cite each (1.3.45-46). Don’t use examples where the term is used literally (In this phrase, “You shall have gold / To pay the petty debt “) debut is literal, but in “Of this proud king, who studies day and night / To answer all the debt he owes to you /
Even with the bloody payment of your deaths,” it is metaphorical).
Animal Emblems:
-“I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me” (1.1.125-126).
-“So some gentleman or other shall scape a predestinate scratched face” (1.1.128-129).
-“Well, you are a rare parrot teacher” (1.1.132).
-“A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours” (1.1.133-134).
-“I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer” (1.1.135-136).
-“You always end with a jade trick” (1.1.138).
-“’In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke’” (1.1.248).
-“The savage bull may, but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull’s horns and set them in my forehead, and let me be vilely painted, and in such great letters as they write “Here is a good horse to hire,” let them signify under my sign “Here you may see Benedick the married man” (1.2.249-254).
-“Too curst is more than curst. I shall lessen God’s sending that way, for it is said, “God sends a curst cow short horns, but to a cow too curst he sends none” (2.1.19-22).
-“…I will even take sixpence in earnest of the bearheard and lead his apes into hell” (2.1.36-38).
-“Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits” (2.3.92).
-“The pleasant’st angling is to see the fish / Cut with her golden oars the silver stream / And greedily devour the treacherous bait” (3.1.26-28).
-“And, Benedick, love on, I will requite thee / Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand” (3.1.111-112).
-“For a hawk, a horse, or a husband?” (3.4.50).
-“I think he thins upon the savage bull / Tush, fear not, man! We’ll tip thy horns with gold / And all Europa shall rejoice at thee / As once Europa did at Justy Jove / When he would play the noble beast in love” (5.4.43-47).
2. After you have gone through the whole play, speculate about what thematic idea Shakespeare is trying to convey through his use of this emblem or metaphor. Who uses the imagery, and with whom or what is it associated?
Animal imagery in “Much Ado About Nothing” is used primarily as a metaphor for the relationships between men and women. Whether it is a sexual innuendo, or describing the way a man is “subdued” into marriage, the emblem of animals plays an important role in the play. The interactions between Beatrice and Benedick are full of metaphors of taming a wild animal, such as hawking. Furthermore, Benedick’s disdain for marriage is partially due to the fear of being cuckolded and wearing the horns of a cuckold. This entrapment of marriage is symbolized by a bull being restrained and practically enslaved, all while wearing the horns of a cuckold and being seen as a fool. However, by the end of the play Claudio says that Benedick will now have gold-tipped horns, like Zeus appearing as a bull to seduce Europa. While previously this animal imagery was used to symbolize the constraints of marriage, now it is used as a celebration of sexuality. The power dynamics in Beatrice and Benedick’s battle of wits and their path to love is reflected in the animal imagery, as is the sexual nature of the characters’ own animal instincts.
3. Look for examples of wordplay (pun, quibble, paradox, reversal, or parallelism) used by two different types of character throughout this play. Copy several of them down in the table below and list the act and scene numbers.
Character 1: Beatrice / Character 2: Margaret“I pray you, is Signor Montanto returned from the wars or no?” (1.1.28-29).
“I pray you, how many hath he killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he killed? For indeed I promised to eat all of his killing” (1.1.39-41).
“O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease! He is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad” (1.1.80-84).
“Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signor Benedick?” (1.1.114-115).
“With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world- if a could get her good will” (2.1.13-15).
“The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil count- civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion” (2.1.276-278).
“No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your grace is too costly to wear every day” (2.1.309-310).
“Ye light a love with your heels! then, if your husband have stables enough, you’ll see he shall lack no barns” (3.4.43-45).
“Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome. Therefore I depart unkissed” (5.2.50-52). / “Twill be heavier soon by the weight of a man” (3.4.25-26)
“Otherwise ‘tis light, and not heavy” (3.4.35).
“A maid, and stuffed! There’s goodly catching of cold” (3.4.60-61).
“He swore he would never marry, and yet now in despite of his heart he eats his meat without grudging…” (3.4.82-83).
“To have no man come over me? Why, shall I always keep belowstairs?” (5.2.9-10).
“Give us the swords, we have bucklers of our own” (5.2.18-19).
4. Look for examples of classical or literary allusions from Greek and Roman mythology or other literary sources. List several of them here, along with an explanation of them.
1.1.36-39: “He set up his bills here in Messina and challenged Cupid at the flight, and my uncle’s fool, reading the challenge, subscribed for Cupid and challenged him at the bird bolt.” Beatrice references the Roman god Cupid, also known as the son of Venus. The god of love, Cupid would use his bow and arrow to strike love in his target’s hearts- possibly foreshadowing how Hero, Ursula, Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato plan to inspire love in Beatrice’s and Benedick’s hearts. This passage is also significant as it alludes to a past between Beatrice and Benedick.
1.1.257-258: “Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Benice, thou wilt quake for this shortly.” Following Benedick’s proclamation about the very likely possibility that if he were to get married his wife would cuckold him, Don Pedro is once again foreshadowing the fact that Benedick would indeed be struck by love’s arrow throughout the course of the play by referencing the Roman god of love.
2.1.240: “She would have made Hercules have turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too.” Hercules, one of Greek mythology’s great heroes, was enslaved by the Amazon Omphale, was required to spin while dressed like a woman.
2.1.256: “…rather than hold three words’ conference with this harpy.” Benedick is comparing Beatrice to one of the winged, female creatures in mythology.
2.1.344: “I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules labors…” Pedro will attempt to get Beatrice and Benedick to fall in love with one another. He compares this to one of Hercules’ labors. Hercules, upon being tricked by Hera into killing his wife and child, is forced to complete 12 strenuous tasks, also known as Hercules’ labors.
2.3.182: “As Hector, I assure you, and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise…” Pedro is referring to Hector, prince of Troy, who died a valiant death. Hector was honorable, and after accidentally killing Achilles’ cousin Patrocles (believing him to be Achilles) Hector faced Achilles in single combat and lost. Hector is especially valiant in comparison with the other Trojan prince, Paris.
5.4.46-47: “As once Europa did at Justy Jove / When he would play the noble beast in love” This is an allusion to Jove (also known as Zeus in Greek mythology) seduced Europa in the form of a bull.