Eclipse of the Political: Private Passions and the Distorting Love of Honor in Much Ado About Nothing

Abstract: A corollary to the fundamental question of philosophy—What is the Nature of Being?—is the philosophical dilemma regarding the ontological status of not-Being. To understand what is we must inquire about what is not , about the nature of nothingness. The absence or eclipse of the political in William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing , which is staged almost exclusively in private, reveals the distorting power of private passions and love of honor upon our perceptions and our capacity to grasp what is . In taking seriously this comedy and noticing what is not , there is indeed much to say about nothing.