Shakespeare’s claim to fame was never the plots of his plays. The basic premises of such works as Romeo and Juliet and Othello were well known and understood before the Bard’s adaptations. Instead, his value was in the unique execution of his plays. Shakespeare introduced many original words and phrases of his own invention in his plays, and almost always set his stories to a specific rhythmic meter. But what really characterized Shakespeare’s works was the sharp wit injected into the most somber of scenes. Hamlet is full of excellent examples of this.
Plenty of the wit comes in the form of biting sarcasm, particularly where Hamlet is speaking to Claudius. In the second scene of the first act, when asked by his uncle about the clouds of his father’s death still hanging over him, Hamlet replies “Not so, my lord; I am too much in the sun” (line 69). The reply is markedly sardonic. Hamlet’s meaning is not that he is happy—the word “sun” is a homophone of “son”—the intent is to say that Claudius has called him “son” too much and that Hamlet does not accept him as his father.
Shakespeare was not afraid to throw in a double entendre either. Yes, if there was one thing that England’s national poet could get behind, it was innuendo. Shakespeare really nails it in Act III, scene 2, with Hamlet’s conversation with Ophelia starting on line 119.
HAMLET: Lady, shall I lie on your lap?
OPHELIA: No, my lord.
Hamlet: I mean, my head upon your lap?
OPHELIA: Ay, my lord.
HAMLET: Do you think I meant country matters?
OPHELIA: I think nothing, my lord.
HAMLET: That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs.
OPHELIA: What is, my lord?
HAMLET: Nothing.
I’m no expert on Olde English profanity, but like Hamlet, I know a hawk from a handsaw. I assume that this was an obvious joke to Shakespeare’s intended audience at the time. After disrespecting Ophelia with the suggestion that he have sexual relations her, Hamlet refers to “country matters.” And he certainly doesn’t mean “matters that have to do with the country,” as evidenced by his next line, “a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs.” The jokes, while entertaining, serve the more important purpose of illustrating to the savvy audience that Hamlet is not only coherent, but almost brilliant in his derisive dialogue. Four hundred words exactly!
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I have read the spark notes to Hamlet and I would like to point out and reassure you that you are indeed correct about Hamlet speaking with profanity and how it maked Ophelia feel awkward. He did actually mean that he was wondering if she wanted to have sex with him and he was thinking about how enjoyable sex was. Seeing how people in Shakespeare's time thought it was funny they must have been much like our teenagers today.
ReplyDeleteOf course, anyone who posts a comment on this idea has to agree with you, mainly because you made a true statement about comedy in Hamlet, but the wit that Shakespeare puts in the play can do some obvious things like lighten the mood, and entertain the audience (as we were told in class). There are always a few more options for "wit" in Shakespeare, like the scene after Polonius dies and the statement: "Not where he eats, but where he is eaten..." By doing this, Hamlet adds more of a light to a dark situation involving murder. In this, Shakespeare almost pokes fun at the content of his own play, and contradicts the tragedy and gravity of the situation, by adding comedy. Anyway, I'm sure you already knew most of this, and I've gotten the obvious out of the way. Overall, this does pose a new question for future comments, what other reasons would Shakespeare include humor besides to lighten the mood and entertain the audience?
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting how Shakespeare uses sexual jokes in Hamlet. However, shakespeare's sexual jokes are not limited to Hamlet. In twelfth night, there is one specific instance when one character, maybe it was Malvolio, is reading a forged letter and exclaims something like "This must be her, the C's U's and T's match her's." Obviously if one puts the letters together with "and" it becomes "CUNT."
ReplyDeleteTo answer Will's question, I think Shakespeare adds humor to bring out the personality in the characters. Most memorable is when Claudius is asking where Hamlet put Polonius and he responds "follow the smell." This comedic relief also gives us an incite into Hamlet's personality as an arrogant person who tells jokes in serious situations. Without the comedy, Hamlet would be borning because he would have no personality. Even if his jokes are inappropriate Shakespeare conveys Hamlet in a way that it is acceptable to use them.
ReplyDeleteWhat I like about old poetry (This being an excellent example) is that even though time has parted us very far apart from the people who wrote and acted them out to beginning, humanity and it's views and values stay relatively the same. Hidden behind the rhymes and sentence structure, it is in Shakespeare's amazing talent that we see today's humor and theirs to be pretty much the same, with only knowledge and technology to dampen, not destroy, the connection.
ReplyDeleteAnthony Schliesman