SOURCE: “Mistaking in Much Ado,” in William Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing, edited by Harold Bloom, Chelsea House Publishers, 1988, pp. 123-32.

In the following essay, originally published in 1985, Newman explores the mingling of comedy and tragedy in Much Ado about Nothing, and compares it toMeasure for Measure.

Many readers of Much Ado about Nothing have remarked that its tragicomic pattern sets it apart from Shakespeare's other romantic plays and links it with the so-called problem comedies. I want to turn finally to Much Ado because it brings us full circle to Measure for Measure. Unlike the threatened tragedy of Measure for Measure, however, the tragedy of Much Ado is apparent rather than real. Things appear to happen; all the characters at one moment or another are seduced into believing in appearances, and its two plots are linked by this common theme of credulity and self-deception. Readers of...