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Much Ado About Everything
Peter Milward
Copyright © 2012 Peter Milward
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2012-07-06
Preface
There are two ways of literary composition. One way is to begin with the title, a really interesting, imaginative title, one that positively demands a book to be written in pursuance of it. I wonder how many books have been written with such an inspiring title as their starting-point. Quite a few, I imagine. And many more poems.
The other way, which may well be called “the beaten path”, is for the book to be written and then an appropriate title to be devised whether by the author or (more frequently) by the publisher. So let it be with this book.
I have to admit I began with the charming chapter “On Nothing”, and then I went on from chapter to chapter each beginning with “On”, till I found I have written no fewer than fifty chapters in succession. Then it occurred to me that an interesting title might be “On Fifty On’s”. Only that would be too formal, saying nothing about the contents. But now it has occurred to me that, if I begin with “On Nothing”, as in the creation of the world, I might well end with “Everything”. Only, instead of mere “Everything”, I should bring in the author whom I might claim as “the only begetter” of these chapters. And then, instead of “On”, I might well begin with “Much Ado” before proceeding to name “Everything”.
As for “Much Ado About Nothing”, whoever, I wonder, could have thought up such a title but William Shakespeare? Not that he was always so skilful with his titles. Some of them merely echo the titles of his source material. Some of them merely indicate a habitual laziness when it came to choosing a title for his plays. But “Much Ado About Nothing” is surely a stroke of genius!
So I am led to wonder how Shakespeare came to choose such a title. He had his source material, but that title wasn’t in his source. I even wonder if he had a source to begin with. One day in the spring – it must have been the spring for such an idea to occur to his mind – I imagine him blissfully thinking of nothing. Such, I imagine, was the subject of not a few of his thoughts, especially in the spring. So he was thinking of nothing when, I imagine, another thought occurred to him. What about writing about “nothing”? What about writing a play with the title of “Nothing”? Or at least, what about writing a play with “Nothing” in the title?
Whenever it came to plays, if not to titles, Shakespeare was nothing if not versatile, nothing if not paradoxical, and, I might add, nothing if not alliterative in the best tradition of his native country. And so, I imagine him drawing the inevitable conclusion, what about “Much Ado”? And there it is. There you have it. Ladies and gentlemen, “Much Ado About Nothing”. What about that for a title?
But now, I imagine a friend of his objecting, what about the play or the story for such a paradoxical, alliterative, quixotic title? Now for Shakespeare that must have been the question. But for him merely to ask such a question would have been to invite the answer. What is the “Much Ado” about which “Nothing” is to be assigned? Where is the “Much Ado” to be found with the implication of “All” or “Everything” in opposition to “Nothing”? Where, I ask, if not in the wedding ceremony?
“In the wedding ceremony?” you may ask, taken aback by the sudden answer, as if it were a rabbit pulled out of a magician’s hat. Yes, I say, in the wedding ceremony. For in that ceremony what word is so important, so crucial, so central to the validity of the wedding, if not “Yes”. That is the word the bride and bridegroom are say to each other when questioned by the priest, “Will you, NN, take her, NN, to be your wedded wife?” Then he is supposed to answer, “Yes.” And then, to the similar question posed to her, she is also supposed to answer, “Yes.” And then their two Yeses make one, and thus, as Friar Laurence tells Romeo and Juliet, holy Church can incorporate two in one.
That is what the bride and bridegroom are supposed to say to each other on such an important occasion. That is what, in other words, they are groomed beforehand to say to each other. But what if they don’t say it? What if one or the other, and first the bridegroom as he is the first to be posed the question, what if he says not “Yes” but “No”? Then what happens? Then, of course, there is the above-mentioned “Much Ado”.
Now all that remains for Shakespeare is to find a story from some Italian collection of stories, such as Bandello’s Novelle, and he is sure to come up with something. After all, such Italian stories are invariably on the subject of love, and if the story of love is to have a happy ending, it must lead up to marriage. But not every such story has a happy ending. Or at least, some stories may seem to have a happy ending, which may suddenly change into a sad ending – and then perhaps just as suddenly change back into a happy ending in the end.
And that is where “Much Ado” may follow on “Nothing”, as implied in the “No” of the bridegroom (rather than the bride). Only, in a comedy, it has eventually to give place to “Everything”, as the bridegroom repents of his mistaken “No”, and says “Yes” in a delayed reaction to his bride. And so the “Much Ado” is cancelled, or remains as a memory in the dramatized form of “Much Ado About Nothing”.
And in some such manner, I imagine, Shakespeare came to write his play under the inspiration of his title. And it is in some such manner that I now entitle this book, by way of companion to Shakespeare’s plays, “Much Ado About Everything”.
On Nothing
Nothing, I always think, is so inspiring as Nothing, especially when spelt, as it deserves, with a capital N. Then it looks like Nirvana. It also has a ringing sound, as in Nnnnothingggg! “Hark how merrily the morn, the Christmas bells are ringing!”
Way back in the West, where I once had my home, we had what is called a yen on Being. Everything had to be, never not to be. Everything had to conform to the principle of Parmenides, “That that is is.” That was mere monism. We exulted in that which we were proud to recall as the male-oriented tradition of the West.
But here and now I am in the East. Here and now I am no longer surrounded by Being, but by Non-Being, or simply Nothing. And this is a female-oriented tradition. It isn’t so much contradictory as complementary to the Being of the West. Rather, in contrast to the Being of the West, I find something fascinating in the Non-Being of the East. The two go together, as the hand to the glove, or the foot to the sock, or the hat to the head. It is what the medieval thinker aptly called “a coincidence of opposites”.
After all, monism belongs to eternity. Monism belongs to infinity. Monism exists above the separation of space and time, above this world. But in this world everything goes in pairs, like the animals going into Noah’s Ark. Here and now, if there is Being in the West, there is also Non-Being in the East. Here and now, there is also Nothing, spelt with a capital N, to distinguish it from mere “nothing”.
After all, in this world of space and time, even Nothing spelt with a capital N goes with another nothing spelt with a small n. Such was the “Nothing” of Cordelia, when she responded to her father’s question of “how much”. But such was not the “nothing” of Lear, when in response to his daughter he angrily said, “Nothing will come of nothing”.
After all, if I may be allowed to repeat the phrase a third time, Lear’s was a Western nothing. His was an Aristotelian nothing. His was merely the nothing of the Schools, a nothing which merely echoes the Aristotelian principle of “Nothing will come of nothing.” In his mind he might have been thinking of the Being of Western tradition, beyond which there is mere nothing. But it was a Being in his mind that