SOURCE: “Children of the Mind: Miscarried Narratives in Much Ado about Nothing,” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 38, No. 2, Spring, 1998, pp. 233-50.

In the following essay, Dobranski traces the “undeveloped, fragmentary history” of the relationship between Benedick and Beatrice, which inflects the light mood of the comedy with tragic elements.

An idea for a short story about people in Manhattan who are constantly creating these real unnecessary neurotic problems for themselves ’cause it keeps them from dealing with more unsolvable, terrifying problems about the universe. 

—Woody Allen, Manhattan

When Beatrice first speaks in Much Ado about Nothing, she inquires after Benedick: “I pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned from the wars or no?” (I.i.28-9).¹ That her first concern is Benedick's welfare suggests an interest in him beyond their ongoing “skirmish of wit” (I.i.58). Like Benedick's assertion that Beatrice exceeds Hero “as much in beauty as...