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Alliteration
Definition of Allusion
In literature, an allusion is an unexplained reference to someone or something outside of the text. Writers commonly allude to other literary works, famous individuals, historical events, or philosophical ideas... read full definition
In literature, an allusion is an unexplained reference to someone or something outside of the text. Writers commonly allude to other literary works, famous individuals... read full definition
In literature, an allusion is an unexplained reference to someone or something outside of the text. Writers commonly allude to... read full definition
Key Examples in Much Ado About Nothing
Act 1, Scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—A Merry War:
Through the motif of war, Shakespeare compares and contrasts courtship with battle. Benedick, Claudio, and the Prince make frequent references to war due to their recent arrival from the battlefield. In Messina, however, they find themselves in a completely different context. In Act 1, Scene 1, Claudio describes his newfound love of Hero as a shift in his perception: he stops using the eyes of a soldier and starts using those of a lover.
O, my lord,
When you went onward on this ended action,
I looked upon her with a soldier’s eye,
That liked, but had a rougher task in hand
Than to drive liking to the name of love.
But now I am returned and that war thoughts
Have left their places vacant, in their rooms
Come thronging soft and delicate desires,
All prompting me how fair young Hero is,
Saying I liked her ere I went to wars.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Blind Cupid:
Allusions to Cupid abound in Much Ado About Nothing. As a god of love from classical mythology who is blind and armed with arrows, Cupid embodies the fickleness of love.
When Don Pedro declares in Act 1, Scene 1 that he will one day see Benedick "look pale with love", Benedick insists:
Unlock with LitCharts A+With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord, not with love. Prove that ever I lose more blood with love than I will get again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker’s pen and hang me up at the door of a brothel house for the sign of blind Cupid.
Related Themes:
Act 2, Scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—Three Phases of Marriage:
In Act 2, Scene 1, Beatrice uses a simile to express her cynicism about marriage to Hero:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed in good time. If the Prince be too important, tell him there is measure in everything, and so dance out the answer. For hear me, Hero, wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinquepace. The first suit is hot and hasty like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance, and with his bad legs falls into the cinquepace faster and faster till he sink into his grave.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Hercules :
Throughout the play, Benedick and Beatrice's allusions to Hercules, a hero in classical mythology known for his strength, track the shift in their relationship. In particular, these allusions to Hercules reveal the gradual change in Benedick's feelings toward Beatrice.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis:
In Act 2, Scene 1, Benedick uses hyperbole to emphasize how intensely he dislikes Beatrice. When the Prince notes that Beatrice is approaching, Benedick asks:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Will your Grace command me any service to the world’s end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on. I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia, bring you the length of Prester John’s foot, fetch you a hair off the great Cham’s beard, do you any embassage to the Pygmies, rather than hold three words’ conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me?
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Adam's Sons:
Through the use of allusions to the biblical Adam, Beatrice and Benedick affirm their opposition to marriage. When Leonato expresses his desire to see Beatrice marry in Act 2, Scene 1, Beatrice replies:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a piece of valiant dust? To make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I’ll none. Adam’s sons are my brethren, and truly I hold it a sin to match in my kindred.
Related Themes:
Act 3, Scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—A Merry War:
Through the motif of war, Shakespeare compares and contrasts courtship with battle. Benedick, Claudio, and the Prince make frequent references to war due to their recent arrival from the battlefield. In Messina, however, they find themselves in a completely different context. In Act 1, Scene 1, Claudio describes his newfound love of Hero as a shift in his perception: he stops using the eyes of a soldier and starts using those of a lover.
Unlock with LitCharts A+O, my lord,
When you went onward on this ended action,
I looked upon her with a soldier’s eye,
That liked, but had a rougher task in hand
Than to drive liking to the name of love.
But now I am returned and that war thoughts
Have left their places vacant, in their rooms
Come thronging soft and delicate desires,
All prompting me how fair young Hero is,
Saying I liked her ere I went to wars.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Blind Cupid:
Allusions to Cupid abound in Much Ado About Nothing. As a god of love from classical mythology who is blind and armed with arrows, Cupid embodies the fickleness of love.
When Don Pedro declares in Act 1, Scene 1 that he will one day see Benedick "look pale with love", Benedick insists:
Unlock with LitCharts A+With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord, not with love. Prove that ever I lose more blood with love than I will get again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker’s pen and hang me up at the door of a brothel house for the sign of blind Cupid.
Related Themes:
Act 4, Scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—Hercules :
Throughout the play, Benedick and Beatrice's allusions to Hercules, a hero in classical mythology known for his strength, track the shift in their relationship. In particular, these allusions to Hercules reveal the gradual change in Benedick's feelings toward Beatrice.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Dian and Venus:
Claudio's use of allusions to Roman goddesses highlights what he perceives as the contradictory nature of women. While berating Hero for her purported infidelity in Act 4, Scene 1, he tells her:
Unlock with LitCharts A+You seem to me as Dian in her orb,
As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown.
But you are more intemperate in your blood
Than Venus, or those pampered animals
That rage in savage sensuality.
Related Themes:
Act 5, Scene 2
Explanation and Analysis—Leander and Troilus:
In a soliloquy in Act 5, Scene 2, Benedick uses allusions to lovers from legend to affirm the intensity of his love for Beatrice. He declares:
Unlock with LitCharts A+But in loving, Leander the good swimmer, Troilus the first employer of panders, and a whole book full of these quondam carpetmongers, whose names yet run smoothly in the even road of a blank verse, why, they were never so truly turned over and over as my poor self in love.
Act 5, Scene 4
Explanation and Analysis—Europa and Jove:
Through allusions to Greek mythology (and specifically the figures Europa and Jove), the play illustrates the change in Benedick's attitude toward marriage. In Act 5, Scene 4, before the weddings take place between Claudio and Hero and between Benedick and Beatrice, the Prince asks Benedick why he looks so nervous. Claudio replies:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I think he thinks 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 lusty Jove
When he would play the noble beast in love.
Related Themes:
