 Let's discuss the character of Benedict who is one of the main characters in the play Much Adore About Nothing. Now initially at the beginning of the play Benedict of course we learned that he's a soldier, he was involved in the war, however he is presented as very carefree, somewhat arrogant and he engages in somewhat playful banter with Beatrice, however some of their banter does seem to verge on being a little bit insulting. Now we learn initially that Benedict is very much against love, he actually scorns it, he sees this as a weakness within a man if a man falls in love, however by the end of the play we do realize that a lot of his banter with Beatrice is actually cloaked in love for her and of course in contrast to hero and Claudio who were really quick to fall in love and the love seemed somewhat impetuous too fast, actually it's interesting that Beatrice and Benedict both appear to actually have had a gradual development of their love which is presented as a little bit more mature okay. Now of course if you're studying this play as part of your coursework or exams you do need to be really familiar with the character of Benedict and of course memorize some of his quotes so as you can see behind me I've prepared all the key quotes to remember from the play relating to his character and I'm going to go over these key quotations and the word-level analysis you can do if you're writing about this either for your coursework or your exams okay so let's get started. Now when it comes to the character of Benedict, as I mentioned initially we see that he's somewhat arrogant, very bawdy, very carefree and initially especially when he first meets Beatrice there's a lot of banter. He states I am loved of all ladies only you accepted I love none. Now here of course what he is saying so Beatrice we've learned that they've actually met before and Beatrice says well I don't really like you you know we learned that both of them have this very scornful approach to love however he appears very arrogant he believes that he's just this very desirable man a desirable bachelor but he does not love any of the women that he engages with okay. Now in terms of what love and analysis to do for this quotation the first is alliteration of loved and ladies also of course he's for Benedict to say that he's loved of all ladies this is an over exaggeration hyperbole okay so also you want to talk about the hyperbole there in addition you want to see kind of this banter and almost kind of competitive dynamic that's set up between him and Beatrice and this is shown through the contrast in the pronouns I versus you so we can see here that there's this kind of competitive spirit that they both have that almost are trying to outcompete each other as to who loves whom less who hates love even more okay. The second quotation to bear in mind with Benedict's character is again he states I will do myself the right to trust none ellipsis I will live as a bachelor okay so here of course he's still reasserting and also of course going totally against what Claudio is doing which is falling in love really quickly with hero and wanted to get married he states that he is a lifelong bachelor and he's committed to being a bachelor now the one level analysis to do for this quotation with Benedict's character is firstly the alliteration of tea in to trust also the repetition of the pronoun I of course here we can see that Benedict is very much about himself very much about just making himself happy and he's a little bit selfish and finally you want to focus on this is a structure point actually so the declarative sentence when he states I will live as a bachelor okay of course this creates a sense of irony by the end of the play when he does decide to get married he falls in love with Beatrice and he does decide to get married and of course this quotation here shows how staunchly Benedict is against love. The third quotation to bear in mind for his character is when he states with anger with sickness or with hunger dot dot dot not with love okay so here he is listing all the things that he is willing to put up with but he cannot put up with love right and of course here you want to talk about the repetition of with and also the listing of anger sickness hunger all these are very negative things negative states of being and what Benedict is saying is that all of these elements are better and more preferable to being in love okay so of course he really is set up as somebody who is totally against love and this adds to the comedic element by the end of the play when he does fall in love with Beatrice. The other quotation to bear in mind for his character is when he realizes so this is after Claudio has denounced hero as being unfaithful and then they all ultimately realize that hero is actually very innocent it was the doing of Don John that led to Claudio misunderstanding the situation and he states two of them have the very bent of honor ellipsis the practice of it lives in John the bastard now here of course what he is saying is both Claudio and hero have actually done nothing wrong so of course he also is kind of excusing Claudio's hurtful words and his hurtful ways towards hero however what he's saying here is actually it's really clear to see that both hero and Claudio have done nothing wrong it's actually Don John who is the person who's created all of this miscommunication and this misunderstanding and he's almost jeopardized their love for each other so actually here we can see he's already changing because he's defending the love and the relationship between Claudio and hero now the word-level analysis you want to do here is a literation so a literation of tea and also you want to focus on assonance of E in them have the and very okay so you've got a literation of tea in two and them and then assonance of E now the next quotation to bear in mind with Benedict's character is when now we realize that he has fallen in love with Beatrice and he states suffer love a good epithet I do suffer love indeed for I love the against my will so here he is confessing to Beatrice still in a very hilarious way that he has fallen in love with her now as we can see in terms of word-level analysis you want to do and actually this would be a structure point you want to make he speaks in a series of exclamatory sentences he states suffer love a good epithet and here this is adding to the comedic element we can see that he literally cannot believe that it's fallen in love the one thing he said he was totally against he's now fallen in love with her and of course we as the audience meant to find this really funny and the other element that you want to do is the repetition of suffer love so he talks about love as being a form of suffering so he still kind of holds on to this notion that being in love is maybe perhaps a weakness which he has now fallen prey to the final quotation to bear in mind when it comes to his characters of course when he confesses his love to Beatrice and we realize that he does want to marry her he states I do love nothing in the world so well as you is that not strange and of course there's still that element of banter even at the end of the plate right so they still have this lighthearted banter between each other and here of course he's saying isn't it crazy that I've fallen in love with you to Beatrice now here in terms of word-level analysis you want to focus on firstly assonance of O in do love and nothing also you've got an actually assonance of O extends to also world so and you okay so that's assonance of O in addition there's a hyperbole of exaggeration nothing in the world and finally he asks the retropical question is that not strange and this retropical question of course is meant to make us as the audience laugh so that's it when it comes to key quotations of bear in mind with the character of Benedict thank you so much for listening