Sparkling with the witty dialogue between Beatrice and Benedict Much Ado About Nothing is one
of Shakespeare's most enjoyable and theatrically successful comedies. This edition offers a
newly edited text and an exceptionally helpful and critically aware introduction. Paying
particular attention to analysis of the play's minor characters Sheldon P. Zitner discusses
Shakespeare's transformation of his source material. He rethinks the attitudes to gender
relations that underlie the comedy and determine its view of marriage. Allowing for the play's
openness to reinterpretation by successive generations of readers and performers Zitner
provides a socially analytic stage history advancing new views for the actor as much as for
the critic.
