Jul 5, 2008
In the first essay, James Smith refutes Samuel Taylor Coleridge's claim that Dogberry is a dispensable character. In the second essay, Anthony B. Dawson examines Dogberry's role in interpreting messages in Much Ado About Nothing. Interestingly, both essays make a comparison between Dogberry and Bottom of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Constable Dogberry is considered one of the most beloved characters in all of Shakespeare's works. But critics have not devoted the intensive studies of his character as they have of other principal characters in Much Ado. James Smith has written one of the more short studies of Dogberry, emphasizing that the wordy constable, far from being mere comic relief, mirrors the values of his betters in Messina society, with their emphasis upon superficiality and appearance above all. Critics agree that, despite their stupidity, Dogberry and his companions, Verges and the Watch, are key to...
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