Is Dowden right, who says "there is a serious intention in the play," or Barrett Wendell who says: "like modern comic opera, such essentially lyric work as this has no profound meaning; its object is just to delight, to amuse; whoever searches for significance in such literature misunderstands it."
In comparison with other comedies of Shakespeare, is a serious undercurrent discernible in all of them, but none in this?
IX
SHAKESPEARE'S PLAY AND TENNYSON'S POEM ("THE PRINCESS") UPON EDUCATION OF MEN AND WOMEN
Summarize story and outcome of Play and Poem in comparison and in contrast. Does Shakespeare's exposition of the contemporary view of education account for the condition Tennyson criticises? If so, are women to blame for it? If not, how much does this modify Tennyson's criticism of the educational exclusion that is the scheme of the College in "The Princess?" Shakespeare seems to point his moral against his male characters for their exclusiveness, Tennyson against his women characters? Which one goes the deeper? Wherein do they agree and disagree? How may they be made to supplement each other? Has Tennyson's poem presented any phase of the question touching upon popular interest in exclusive educational schemes? Is Shakespeare, considering his time, the more democratic in his views of life, as shown by this Play, in comparison with those brought out in Tennyson's Poem. Why does Shakespeare leave the women in moral and actual command of the situation?
QUERIES FOR DISCUSSION
Is co-education the right conclusion to draw from the exposition by the Poets of educational restraints and the relation of men and women to life?
What ideals of life as to Nature and Education must be included in educational schemes? Why does the Play not end with as many marriages as there are lovers? Is it possibly because Shakespeare did not mean to bring forward love between man and woman as if it were the only thing in life but as the typical experience of life that should open up the depths of knowledge not of love alone but of death and suffering in relation to it.
MUCH ADOE ABOUT NOTHING
The title of this Comedy broadly describes its character, and is based upon the double meaning of "Nothing." The events that constitute the plot are the result of "note-ing" or overhearing and so taking note of events which are deceptive in some way. Hence, in all the "note-ing" that takes place, there is, after all "nothing," and the whole amusing plot constitutes much ado about nothing. The letter "h" in Nothing was often silent in Elizabethan pronunciation. The "h" in "Moth" in "Love's Labour's Lost" is another example.