Intertextuality: Much Ado about Nothing and The Tale of Genji

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Intertextuality: Much Ado about Nothing and The Tale of Genji
Much Ado about Nothing is a comic play by William Shakespeare written about 1598-1599. The play focusses on two romantic relationships of Benedick and Beatrice and that of Don Pedro and Hero. Another great writer of old times is Murasaki Shikibu, who hails from Japan and among her signature works is The Tale of Genji, believed to have been written around the 11th Century and is considered to be among Japanese top literal works of art. Notably, the two novels focus on different themes with different characterizations and all are brought out in a contrastive manner (though some may be similar). This research paper seeks to compare and contrast the effects of intertextuality by particularly exploring the protagonists in the novels, Benedick in Much Ado about Nothing and Genji from The Tales of Genji.
Benedick
Benedick is majorly the accomplice to Don Pedro (Shakespeare and Kamaralli, 8). He is described as a willful Lord, but having a heart of always ensuring that people surrounding him are happy and entertained. He uses his slyness to try and outdo the Lady Beatrice in smartness, insults and even wit. One thing, however, that Benedick does is to be discreet of his behavior towards Beatrice in front of his friends. He gets charmed on hearing that Beatrice has desire for him and vows to love her whole-heartedly. One distinguishing character of Benedick is his ability to hyperbolize his feelings towards anything. At one point, he is caught telling his friends that, “…Will your grace command me any service to the world’s end? I will go… I will fetch you a tooth picker from furthest inch of Asia…” (Shakespeare, n.p). This is after claims he makes of being misused by Beatrice.
It is very hard to understand whether or not Benedick fell in love with Beatrice suddenly or it was a gradual occurrence. It is important to note that initially, Benedick had sworn not to marry whatsoever the occurrence. When he realizes that he has fallen in love for Beatrice, he works to conceal himself from his friends, by even going to the extent of shaving his beard. The interaction between Benedick and Beatrice seems to be changing his perception of doing things. This is evident when he challenges his best friend Claudio to death duel over Claudio’s accusations of Hero’s unchaste behavior.
Genji
Genji hails from a royal family, since his father is the Emperor of Japan at the time as seen from the book (Murasaki and Suematsu, 26). The Emperor cannot make Genji the heir to the throne since he was born of his intimate, Kiritsubo. This results in the child, who is the emperor’s favorite son, being cast as a commoner. At the age of twelve, he marries Aoi, a girl who is four years older than him. The two never live to develop the chemistry of husband and wife in their entire marriage. This makes Genji develop intimate relationships with a number of women in court. When Kiritsubo dies, the Emperor summons Fujitsubo, because she looks like Kiritsubo. Genji develops interest in her to intimate levels. He impregnates her and the Emperor lives to think that the child is his. Genji kidnaps F...