'It is not so, nor 'twas not so'

Funny Words and the Role-Playing of 'Double-Tongues' in Much Ado about Nothing

Abstract

This paper examines one of Benedick's remarks in the play: "Like the old tale, my lord: 'It is not so, nor 'twas not so: but indeed, God forbid it should be so!' " This quotation is from "an old tale," first identified in 1821 by a certain Mr Blakeway for the old Variorum edition of Much Ado. Drawing especially on the Oxford English Dictionary, I first examine the semantic and the grammatical nature of "It is not so, nor 'twas not so"; then, relying on Paul Ricoeur's The Rule of Metaphor and Stanley Cavell's The Claim of Reason, I argue that reality, just like fiction, is always created in an attitude, in a mode of approaching what is before us; we are only given the so, never the is. Thus, whether what we, within the so, are encountering is 'real' or 'imaginary' will not depend on the amount of certainty we have with respect to the approached object; the object will always be in the mode of is and is not at the same time. Within so, we construct both reality and the imaginary rather through 'it is not not so' than through either just 'is,' or just 'is not.' The difference in our respective attitudes might be that with respect to the imaginary we have a greater awareness of the ever-presence of not in is, or rather of the not not: we do not have a greater or lesser amount of certainty of, but a greater amount of intimacy with, the not not.