Wordplay is an important and frequently used component of Shakespeare’s written works. Aside from being a common approach by other Elizabethan writers, the puns have been used to provide comic relief, to build up tension, to provoke thoughts, and to clarify or explain. More than once do the puns either create a clear picture of the emotions in the scene or furthermore allow the audience to develop their own thoughts about what is truly occurring. ‘Pure lexical ambiguity derives mainly from two sources: polysemy and homonymy’ (Su 1994: 32), and as inferred from Cabanillas (1999: 31-36), those two are the starting point for nearly all of the prevalent and mentioned kinds of puns. There is a fine line between the two: Polysemy refers to the coexistence …show more content…
In the first sentence, Viola asks if Feste makes a living and spends his time playing the tabour, he interprets this, though, as if he is asking where his residence …show more content…
The fusion of words or their sounds, referred to by others as portmanteau, may fall under this. Similar to the example provided by Cabanillas wherein Cleopatra’s “intrinsicate” brings together the meanings of “intricate” and “intrinsic”, an example of such pun is also seen in Hamlet. “Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste” is quoted from Shakespeare. And as M.Mahood commented on the particular line: ‘The Messenger in Hamlet likens Laertes’ invasion of the palace to the ocean’s ‘inpittious haste’ because he is both impetuous and pitiless to those who bar his way’ (1988: 16) the blending definitions of ‘acting without care’ and ‘cruelness’ work as suggestions that lead to the word “haste” and also provide an insight into the character’s personality. In Act I Scene III of Julius Caesar, “I met a lion/ who glazed upon me” ambiguously indicates whether the lion’s fixed look is of admiration and eager or its counterpart of intense and angry
A pun is a humorous play on words by using words that consist of two or more meanings similar sounding phrases that have contrasting definitions.
1. Pun- a play on words; used when two words sound the same but have different meanings for humor.
Today her teacher was discussing the history of the games. As far as punning opportunities(or pun-portunities) go, the topic could not be more perfect. Chloriphina Sills is a girl who believes that morbid humor is the best form of comedy
In homographic puns, the two words share the same spelling, but difference in sound and meaning. In homophonic puns, the two words share the same sound, but difference in spelling and meaning. In homonymic puns, the two words share the same spelling and sound, but difference in meaning. To make things easier to understand, let’s take a look at the below tables.
Shakespeare uses metaphors and figures throughout his plays to give the reader and audience a further understanding of the story he is telling. In Metaphors We Live By, it is stated that “…Metaphorical expressions in everyday language can give us insight into the metaphorical nature of concepts that structure our everyday activities…” (Lakoff & Johnson 7). Through these conceits Shakespeare expands a normal idea and transforms it into
While most of William Shakespeare’s renown comes from his plays and sonnets, few realize how many words he created. Whether for no purpose, or for lack of a better word to use, the words he invented lasted way beyond his life. Even four hundred years from his time, Shakespeare’s words still exist. He took the word “assassinate” and turned it into a new word – “assassination.” Shakespeare also invented the word “lackluster,” a term used to describe something lacking in brilliance.
Of course, no Shakespeare play would be complete without the use of puns. Shakespeare uses this type of humor as a witty way to keep the dialogue fresh and flowing. The reader gets a taste of these funny little bits as early as the first act and first scene, when Brakenbury starts, “With this, my lord, myself have naught to
In the story of Richard III, the play opens with a monologue by Richard himself. The first two lines start off with a pun: “Now is the winter of our discontent/ Made glorious summer by the son of York.” Here Richard actually uses only one of the two references that make up the pun, the word son, with reference to the first son of the duke of York, King Edward IV. But because the word son appears in the context of “glorious summer,” the audience supplies the second part of the pun in the word sun. The second kind of pun is evident a few lines later in the same speech when Richard suggests that he is so ugly there is nothing for him to do but “see my shadow in the sun/ And descant on mine own deformity.” The
not astonish that innumerable multitude of people aim to pierce deeper into his work shipping the
Shakespeare was and is the master of wordplay. He fluidly manipulated his words into withholding more substance than it did by itself. Being a “popular dramatist,”(Shakespeare biography encyclopedia,1) the puns were his signature, and his play “Romeo and Juliet” contains a plethora of them. In Scene 1 Act 1 of Romeo and Juliet, he incorporates a pun on carry coals and plays with the words collier, choler,
“Each play of Shakespeare is the development of a metaphor or group of metaphors. There is a matrix out of which feeling finds words, emotions take shape and voices become characters. That which is referred to most often- in metaphors, images, allusions and statements- is usually for Shakespeare what is significant” (Rehder 1980 p56)
Ling (2006) defined puns as the use of words which has many shades with meaning for
The present research paper dwells on contrastive analysis of pleonasm in Ukrainian and Anglophone political discourses. In political texts in general and speeches in particular, ideas and ideologies need to be conveyed through language, words and expressions are used in different ways to affect the meaning. Language system has great potential of redundant language means which can be imployed in speech in various ways. Redundancy in representing meanings of notions is a basis for a pleonasm. Elements which at the first sight lack meaningful load may contribute to coherence and cohesion of a text, underlining and justifying its main idea. Difficulty of defining pleonasm as a language phenomenon causes its ambiguous interpretation in modern linguistics.
How do these puns further communicate the horror of the situation? (60
than 400 years ago, many records on him are lost or quite possibly never existed at all. There are