Shakespeare and Galatea

In his review of Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing , Stephen Greenblatt connects the theme of “nothing” with “noting” and “noting” with eavesdropping, and from there suggests that Shakespeare’s plays have to be understood in the light of Renaissance courtesy rules: “To understand the culture out of which Shakespeare is writing, it helps to read Renaissance courtesy manuals like Baldassare Castiglione’s famous Book of the Courtier (1528) or, still better, Giovanni della Casa’s Galateo or, The Rules of Polite Behavior (1558, available in a delightful new translation by M.F. Rusnak). It is fine for gentlemen and ladies to make jokes, della Casa writes, for we all like people who are funny, and a genuine witticism produces ‘joy, laughter, and a kind of astonishment.’ But mockery has its risks. It is perilously easy to cross a social and moral line of no return. Whatever quality or error is being mocked ‘must be such that no noticeable shame or serious harm could arise from it; otherwise it would be hard to distinguish quips from slander.’”

When we read Much Ado and Galatea together, we realize just how jolting the Benedick-Beatrice relationship is: “Beatrice and Benedick are right on the edge of slander for much of the play. Beatrice, says Benedick, is a kind of evil spirit who needs to be exorcised from polite company, ‘for certainly, while she is here a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary, and people sin upon purpose because they would go thither, so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her.’ If Benedick’s rage takes him to the edge of incoherence—it is difficult to figure out exactly what he is saying here, except that he hates this woman—Beatrice’s hits are more deft and more painful . . . . It is important to take in how nasty this banter is, for if we do not see how much blood is being drawn—how close they both are to saying things that can never be unsaid—we cannot grasp the peculiar, bittersweet pleasure of the trick that is played on them.”