Benedick and Beatrice ... Again

It is strange, how things come full circle. When I began this blog, now three years ago, I was deeply involved in a college production of Much Ado About Nothing. And here I am, three years later, deeply involved in the same play because I am writing about it for my job.

Believe it or not, I actually went back through blog posts and IM logs from that semester, searching for clues to the characters of Beatrice and Benedick. What surprised me most in this hunt was the difference between my own perspective of the lovers at the age of 20, and what I think of them now, at 23.

I was most struck, then, by Beatrice's generous nature. I was amazed that she could remain an "excellent sweet lady" after being abandoned once by Benedick. I loved her for her sisterly love towards Hero, for her quick wits, and for her ability to laugh at herself. I loved the expansiveness, the glowing quality of her character. I felt that this was a woman who could love deeply, and go on loving in spite of pain.

Benedick, I thought, was saved from being a cad only because his extreme foolishness seemed pitiable. I scorned him for leaving Beatrice with a broken heart in the first place, and then for being so reluctant to understand his own heart on his second round with "blind Cupid." I thought him a laughing, grinning, flouting and jesting young man, worthy of Beatrice only because he has the talents to amuse her. If the Prince had had Benedick's tongue, I would have infinitely preferred him.

That is what most struck me then. This time around, I am influenced by the perspective of a nineteenth century commentator named Anna Jameson, who points out something entirely different, and less appealing. Jameson highlights Beatrice's pride and vanity, and even calls her femininity into question. Her comments on Benedick I found even more surprising (and thought-provoking). She writes, concerning Shakespeare's portrayal of Beatrice and Benedick,

“Of the two portraits, that of Benedick is by far the most pleasing, because the independence and gay indifference of temper, the laughing defiance of love and marriage, the satirical freedom of expression, common to both, are more becoming to the masculine than to the feminine character. Any woman might love such a cavalier as Benedick, and be proud of his affection; his valour, his wit, and his gaiety sit so gracefully upon him! and his light scoffs against the power of love are but just sufficient to render more piquant the conquest of this ‘heretic in despite of beauty’” (Shakespeare's Heroines 43).

Jameson points out that Benedick is the first and freest of the two to love, and that whereas Benedick is willing to fight for her, Beatrice is willing to risk his life in the fight with Claudio. When I went back to re-read the play in preparation for writing, I had been "converted" to "see with new eyes." Now Benedick appears to me far more attractive, wiser, braver, more generous---the one who truly bears most in the relationship, and bears it so well that his cheerfulness led me formerly to accuse him of frivolity.

Beatrice, whom I thought so generous before, now appears bitter indeed in her endless jabs----and she whose capacity to love I had praised now seems a little more shallow than the Benedick that I so scorned.

And so, in short, I feel like Beatrice herself. I was so narrowly focused on her virtues that I failed to recognize his, and so eager to "spell him backwards" that I never considered whether his face might not be really worth looking at frontwards.

I have learned to love Benedick, and now bid adieu to all my pride. No glory lives behind the back of such! And Benedick, live on! I will admire thee, taming my prejudiced heart to consider thy sweetness, mirth, valor, wisdom, gallantry, and steady purpose. For Jameson says thou dost deserve, and I believe it better than reportingly!