Evidence of Shakespeare’s authorial intent in Much Ado About Nothing

Important evidence that Shakespeare does intend to convey sage messages in his plays can be found in Act I Scene 2 of Much Ado About Nothing. This short scene focuses on an error by Antonio’s man overhearing the conversation between the Prince and Claudio—he mistakenly concludes that the Prince himself seeks the hand of Hero.

This scene does not move the main action of the play along. Neither does it function as a comic interlude nor serve as a filler needed to link two parts of the action. Furthermore, no consequence can be attributed to the scene, since the mistaken notion—as reported to Leonato—that the Prince intends to marry his daughter, takes no real hold on Leonato, and we do not even get to see his reaction when the truth is later revealed.

Why then does this scene exist at all? If Shakespeare intends no underlying meaning to his plays, this scene would be redundant, hardly missed if it disappeared entirely … unless, of course, Shakespeare has a reason for including it.

That this scene exists is evidence that Shakespeare does indeed carefully craft his plays with an intended meaning, because the scene specifically emphasizes that misperception is a vital aspect of the play’s message. 

Recall, from my earlier post, that the central theme of Much Ado About Nothing can be summarized by three complementary motifs:

• Our partiality—attraction or aversion—is an arbitrary projection based on imputed qualities not inherent in the object of our feelings.
• Our feelings of liking or hating are often conjured up by a misperception of reality.
• These arbitrary feelings, born of misperception, often create unnecessary strife and turmoil, and hence “much ado about nothing.”

This short second scene of Act I thus expands on the main theme of the play that echoes relentlessly throughout the entire play and serves a very real artistic purpose. Here, Shakespeare deliberately presents it as a complete scene, all by itself, to stress that he is indeed making a point. He is, in a way, sending his audience a direct message concerning this.

It is important to note, here, that we are NOT deducing Shakespeare’s intended meaning based on information about the author himself (like his personality, his historical background, his religion, etc.). This deduction is purely derived from the script itself, and nothing else. Even if we know nothing at all about Shakespeare as a person, the conclusion about the meaning of his play remains unchanged. Hence, we are not making an “intentional fallacy” about the author, in the way that is often mentioned in academic debates.

The very fact that this Scene 2 in Act I exists at all, coupled with the astonishing cohesive unity of the entire play, as well as its relentless thematic resonance, must mean that Shakespeare did have clear authorial intent in crafting Much Ado About Nothing. It is hard to imagine that all this could have occurred by chance. A complete exploration (based purely on his script) of how Shakespeare conveys his meaning in Much Ado About Nothing can be found in my book The Mystical Art of Shakespeare Vol I (https://kenneth-chan.com/shakespeare/the-mystical-art-of-shakespeare-volume-i/ ) 

I have now written three books on five Shakespearean plays: Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, and Romeo & Juliet. They are all written in the form of a running commentary of each play in its entirety, specifically to demonstrate their all-encompassing cohesive unity. Every part of each play contributes to its particular central meaning. This would hardly be possible if Shakespeare had not deliberately crafted them this way. I believe it is time to give Shakespeare his due credit in creating plays which are profoundly meaningful to humanity.