Much Ado About Nothing (No Fear Shakespeare): No Fear Shakespeare Side-by-Side Plain English

Excellent resource for teaching and studying!

Happy with product

Great text, the translation to modern English is super helpful.

Really needed a line by line translation. This helped massively and have even bought another. Arrived quickly and well packaged.

A great help in understanding some of the more difficult lines in Shakespeare's work. The play is printed on the left pages, with a modern translation on the right. Very easy to use.

Excellent book in explaining the meaning of the Shakespearean text. Well set out & simple to follow

Everything good

great for school work, makes it alot easier in english to understand some of the words. would highly recommend to anyone.

Très bon outil pour étudier Shakespeare, un indispensable !

The book is very nice with good paraphrase. But it does not have explanations for mythical characters and other things indicated in the text.

Good price. Super helpful.

I’m homeschooling mom with a degrees in English. A love of the works of Shakespeare is something I’d hoped to instill in my child. This has allowed me to do so in a way that is not frustrating. It aids in understanding. We combine it with the original to help with the ability to read and understand Shakespeare’s style.

No Fear Shakespeare’s "Much Ado About Nothing" is delightful. Shakespeare lived from 1564 to 1616. "Much Ado About Nothing" is ironic. Much that is interesting happens in this very well-crafted play. The "No Fear" procedure of placing the original Shakespeare language on the left pages with plain English translations on the right with frequent brief notes explaining ideas and behaviors that existed in Shakespeare's era but not today is excellent. The play has several "Ados" where people play tricks on others. Three result in favorable situations, one not so.(1) Beatrice and Benedick are very witty people. Whenever they meet, they mock each other in funny ways. Benedick never wants to marry because he is convinced all wives cuckold their husbands with lovers. Beatrice wants to remain a virgin until she dies because she dislikes being controlled by a husband. Women being subservient to men was considered proper during Shakespeare's era. Several friends devise a trick to make them fall in love.(2) Claudio is in love with beautiful, wealthy young Hero. A nobleman, Don Pedro, tells him he will woo her for him, get her to agree to the marriage, and then get her father's consent. Parents decided whom their daughters would marry in Shakespeare's era.(3) Don Pedro's illegitimate brother devises a plan to hurt Don Pedro, whom he despises, by ruining the happiness of Claudio and Hero.(4) When Don Pedro's trick to hurt Don Pedro seems to work, Friar Francis suggests a scheme to save the couple's happiness.There is humor in the pay in the speeches of two guards who get virtually everything wrong when they talk. But they save the day.There is also one disturbing item. In Act 2, Scene 3, Benedick says about Beatrice in Shakespeare’s language, "If I do not love her, I am a Jew." The plain English page changes this offensive wording to, "If I don't love her, I'm completely hard-heated." It explains in a note, "According to anti-Semitic stereotypes, Jews were supposed to be hard-hearted and lacking a sense of charity." Shakespeare also belittled Jews in his “The Merchant of Venice.”Interestingly, despite the play being built on ancient ideas, it is still enjoyable today.