Pun in Hamlet: A Matter of Interest or Necessity

Neither great men of letters nor great works of art are free from the critiques of critics. Among them, Shakespeare and his magnum opuses are not exceptional. Hamlet, the epitome of English drama, is written in a style for which it tastes bitter critiques. The perpetual use of puns and quibbles or, in other terms, word plays are among the targets toward which the critics fire their critiques. However, a close look at these puns and the way they are in the service of the play would reveal the appropriate use of this rhetorical figure. In order to intensify the paradoxical atmosphere of the play, William Shakespeare turns to the true nature of puns in Hamlet. In other words,Shakespeare, to reveal the characters’ paradoxes, plays wittily with the words. Regarding this point, the researchers, in this study that tries to attract the attention of the academics, deal with investigating whether the use of puns is just a matter of taste or there is an intention in this excessive application.

Keywords:

Hamlet , pun , word play , quibble , Shakespeare.