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Perhaps my favorite example of my type of romance is the Shakespeare play “Much Ado About Nothing.” I like it because it’s a great play (the original romantic comedy), and I admit because a petty part of me likes the legitimacy Shakespeare lends my ideals of romance and marriage.
Enter the two couples: the young Claudio and Hero, in starry-eyed infatuation with one another, and the older bickering Beatrice and Benedick, who always try to outdo each other in a war of wits. Benedick and Claudio are soldiers who made the acquaintance of Beatrice and Hero when they stayed at the villa of Hero’s father. They stayed there once on their way out to battle, and then again in celebration upon returning from it. Everyone met the first time, but it’s interesting to see how their initial relationships contrasted.
It’s heavily implied that Beatrice and Benedick embarked on some kind of relationship when they first met. “You always end with a jade’s trick, / I know you of old” (1.1.129-130) Beatrice states of Benedick, and then later admits, “Indeed, my lord, he lent (his heart) me awhile, and I gave him use for it – a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your grace may well say I have lost it” (2.1.249-252). We have to read a bit between the lines, but it’s there: Beatrice and Benedick were in some kind of prior relationship before he left for war, but it didn’t end well.
Now let’s contrast that with Claudio and Hero. They must have met before the men left for war, but Claudio never gave Hero a second glance. Now that he’s returned the moment he claps eyes on her he’s all: “Can the world buy such a jewel?” (1.1.160). “Yea, and a case to put it into” (1.1.161) is Benedick’s snarky reply, imploring his friend to speak and act more realistically.
Although Claudio acts like he’s stricken with love at first sight, it’s not first sight. Benedick mentions how before all Claudio could think of was war, but now that it’s peacetime his thoughts have turned softer – perhaps, in part, because he’s now unemployed and Hero, as the only child of the wealthy Leonato, stands to inherit a fortune.
The villain of the play, for his own inexplicable reasons, wants to ruin everyone’s happiness. He does this by having one of his men pose at a window with one of Hero’s maids late at night. Then he brings Claudio to see the window. All Claudio sees is the back of a woman’s head in a room with a man and he decides to publicly humiliate her, breaking up with her at the altar and calling her a whore.
Hero’s father and relatives decide to fake her death, thinking that if Claudio ever loved her he’ll feel remorse. Here’s the most telling part: he doesn’t, not until he finds out Hero was innocent. Only then does he regret what he’s done. I’m sorry, but if he ever truly loved her he’d mourn her passing, even if she had cheated on him (and the proof of that was flimsy).
Meanwhile we have Beatrice and Benedick: they’re a bit older, they know themselves and each other better. They don’t speak in florid language (in fact the one time Benedick tries to write Beatrice a love poem it goes awfully), and their characters grow and mature in order to be with one another. They’re the most interesting part of the play and the only real reason to watch/read it, so I think it’s rather clear what type of romance Shakespeare supports.
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*(This photo by Rama is from the Wikimedia Commons and is thus in the public domain for free use).
