The History of English Podcast · Kevin Stroud

Episode 178: Much Ado About Hamlet

·1 hr 17 min·5 clips

“All the world's a stage” comes from Jacques’s Seven Ages of Man speech in As You Like It.

1. The History of English Podcast episode 178, “Much Ado About Hamlet,” follows Shakespeare plays dated around 1600 to 1601. 2. The host, who runs historyofenglishpodcast.com, frames the episode around Shakespeare’s language legacy and the first years of the 1600s. 3. The episode asks what Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, and Hamlet contributed to English idiom and vocabulary. 4. The Stationers’ Company of London recorded three plays as “to be stayed” on August 4, 1600, including Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, and As You Like It. 5. Much Ado About Nothing later appeared in quarto form in 1600, while As You Like It did not appear in print until the First Folio after Shakespeare’s death. 6. Much Ado About Nothing is set in Messina, Sicily, and centers on Claudio, Hero, Don Pedro, and Don John. 7. Don John’s associate Boraccio stages a deception that makes Claudio think Hero is unfaithful. 8. Dogberry and Verges direct watchmen who overhear the plot, but Dogberry’s own malapropisms keep the warning from landing cleanly. 9. Dogberry says “comprehend all vagrum men,” “adieu, be vigilant,” and “our watch, sir, has indeed comprehended two auspicious persons.” 10. The wedding scene turns on Claudio’s refusal to marry Hero at the altar before the deception is cleared up. 11. The title Much Ado About Nothing is linked to the surviving phrase “much ado about nothing,” although the Oxford English Dictionary cites earlier uses. 12. The play also yields early or first recorded uses of “unmitigated,” “candle waster,” “employable,” “lawyer,” and “negotiate.” 13. As You Like It adapts Thomas Lodge’s Rosalind and places most of its action in the Forest of Arden. 14. Rosalind and Celia flee to the forest, and Rosalind dresses as a man to avoid harassment. 15. The phrase “I cannot go no further” appears as an example of Shakespeare’s double negatives. 16. Duke Senior’s line “True it is that we have seen better days” is treated as an early use of that phrase, and Jacques’s “All the world’s a stage” speech is presented as the most famous passage. 17. The phrase “too much of a good thing” is traced to Rosalind’s banter with Orlando, and “lackluster” is presented as a surviving coinage from the play. 18. The episode’s tone is explanatory and chronological, with frequent quotations from Shakespeare and brief detours into word history and publishing history. 19. Listeners interested in Shakespeare, idioms, and English vocabulary history will get the most from it. 20. Listeners wanting modern literary analysis or a short summary of Hamlet may skip it.

As heard by us

Shakespeare, empire, and Essex are tied to a careful account of how English kept changing.

Shakespeare serves as the episode's pivot, carrying the story from the early 1600s into the stubborn afterlife of his language in everyday speech.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want Shakespeare, the first years of the 1600s, and the phrases Hamlet left behind.

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