Understanding Shakespeare: Much Ado about Nothing by Robert A. Albano - HTML preview

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Act II, Scene 3: The Ideal Wife

 

Earlier Beatrice had described the ideal husband, creating a list of qualities that would be impossible for any one man to possess. In the third scene of Act II, Benedick, after wondering how Claudio could be so foolish as to fall in love, describes the ideal wife: she must be beautiful ("fair"), wise, virtuous, rich, mild, noble, and skilled in music (lines 23-29). Although Beatrice is not mild, she probably comes closer to meeting the definition of the ideal wife than any other woman.

Of course, the similarity between these lines and the ones spoken earlier by Beatrice is Shakespeare's way of revealing the compatibility between these two characters. Both are witty and intelligent. Both have publicly sworn that they would never get married. And both of them speak about ideal partners in very similar ways.