SOURCE: Allen, John A. “Dogberry.” Shakespeare Quarterly 24, no. 1 (winter 1973): 35-53.

In the following essay, Allen proposes that Much Ado about Nothing's comic, self-important, and utterly preposterous constable, Dogberry, is not the only character in the play with an inflated ego.

It is safe to assume that Dogberry, the “right master constable” of Much Ado about Nothing, would appear in anyone's Who's Who of memorable comic characters in Shakespeare; yet he seems largely to have baffled, or at any rate escaped, serious critical attention. Commentators frequently convey the impression that his peculiarities are more to be wondered at than analyzed.¹ However, on the principle that Shakespeare seldom wasted an opportunity to turn his material to full dramatic account, we may suspect that Dogberry, intriguing as he is merely as a preposterous phenomenon, is more than that.

Surely Dogberry would not make so lasting an impression if he were...