How Shakespeare presents Leonato, and how the character develops across the text: the hospitable governor whose love for his daughter turns to rage at her shame, then to a fight for her name.
The key quotations for this character and how to analyse them, with the context that shapes them.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping!', 'Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your grace', 'Daughter, remember what I told you', 'Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband', 'Do not live, Hero; do not ope thine eyes', 'Why ever wast thou lovely in my eyes?', 'Could she here deny / The story that is printed in her blood?', 'For there was never yet philosopher / That could endure the toothache patiently', 'Bring me a father that so loved his child', 'Art thou the slave that with thy breath hast kill'd / Mine innocent child?'.
His turn in the church scene from proud father to Hero's harshest judge, and his verse in Act 5 as grief becomes a demand for justice.
Context: a father's authority over his daughter's marriage, the honour of a governor's house, and why Hero's shame falls on him.
OCR's question on this play is one essay, from a choice of two, for 40 marks: an extract-based question on the printed extract and the play elsewhere, or a discursive question on a view of the play, using at least two moments. Response (AO1) and language, form and structure (AO2) carry the most weight and equal weight, context (AO3) counts as the play shows it, and 4 marks are for vocabulary, sentence structures, spelling and punctuation (AO4). An extract-based answer that never leaves the extract, or a discursive answer built on one moment, cannot go above Level 3. Each worked paragraph and exam tip is labelled with the question it is for.
