Hamlet's Words

Custom Written Essays - Hamlet's Words

"How pregnant sometimes his replies are!" (Pol. 2.2.204-5). Hamlet, that often times dreaded literary work by the great artist Shakespeare, is a play described by Frank Kermode as one that reveals a full presentation of the capabilities of Shakespeare (96). Hamlet portrays a young prince who has been cheated out of the throne and embarrassed by the swift marriage of his mother, the Queen, to the brother of the King, his uncle. It is eventually revealed that the King has been murdered by the uncle, now King, and that Hamlet is expected, according to the ghost of his dead father, to avenge the murder. Hamlet is faced with: mourning the death of his father; the hasty marriage of his mother to his uncle; the assigned task of revenge by a ghost; the betrayal of his friends and girlfriend; and trying to prove the case of the ghost to justify the assignment of revenge. Enough to drive a sane person crazy! In his attempt to juggle these quandaries he finds himself wielding "[...] wild and whirling words, [...]" (Hor. 1.5.133) that earn him the reputation of being mad. These words that Hamlet communicates are bursting with puns, sarcasm, and doubles often times causing those who dread this work to smile and smile in spite of themselves.

By definition a pun is a humorous word used in a way that suggests two or more interpretations. The young Hamlet of Denmark is a master at the art of using puns to accomplish many tasks in the play. Some puns are used to distinguish between different words, thus undoing the meaning of something someone else has said. As Lawrence Danson points out, in his essay "Tragic Alphabet", "Hamlet's punning carries with it th...

... middle of paper ...

... 1974. Rpt. in Bloom. 65-85.

Ferguson, Margaret W. "Hamlet: Letters and Spirits." Shakespeare and the Question of Theory. Ed. Patricia Parker and Geoffrey Hartman. New York: Routledge, 1985. 292-309. Rpt. in Shakespeare. 246-62.

Kermode, Frank. Shakespeare's Language. New York: Farrar, 2000.

Knight, G. Wilson. "The Embassy of Death: An Essay on Hamlet." The Wheel of Fire. London: Methuen, 1930. Rpt in Shakespeare. 184-191.

Levin, Harry. "Interrogation, Doubt, Irony: Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis." The Question of Hamlet. New York: Oxford UP, 1959. 48-52, 79-86, 105-106. Rpt. in Bevington. 73-81.

Shakespeare, William. Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism. Ed. Cyrus Hoy. 2nd ed. A Norton Critical Edition. New York: Norton, 1992.