PUNS AND METATHEATRE

In Hamlet

PUNSWhat is a pun?

a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings,

by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-

sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical

effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use

of homophonic,, metonymic, or metaphorical language.

Henri Bergson defined a pun as a sentence or utterance in

which "two different sets of ideas are expressed, and we are

confronted with only one series of words". Puns may be

regarded as idiomatic constructions, given that their usage

and meaning are entirely local to a particular language and

its culture. For example, camping is intense (in tents).

PUNS IN HAMLET

Why does Hamlet use puns?

What effect do the puns have on the play and

meaning of his words or his intentions?

Read the article on Puns and annotate – star five

important sentences in understanding the role of

puns in Hamlet.

TURN TO ACT 5 SC1

I need volunteer actors:• Gravedigger• Helper• Hamlet • Horatio

Note the puns and humor used in this section and the effect.

Note how Hamlet talk about death in this section and the

tone.

After, we will watch the Brahnagh version of this scene.

METATHEATRE

What is it?

Play within a play – where the audience becomes cognizant

of the fact that we are watching characters watch a play• Cultivates self reflection on the part of the characters

and audience• Cultivates catharsis (emotional purging)• Cultivates parody (mocking a technique and style)• Cultivates a microcosm of the theatrical situation and

helps us separate reality from illusion (acting)

Role-playing derives from the character not accepting his societal role

and creating his own role to change his destiny.

Stuart Davis suggests that "metatheatricality" should be defined by its

fundamental effect of destabilizing any sense of realism: "

'Metatheatre' is a convenient name for the quality or force in a play

which challenges theatre's claim to be simply realistic — to be nothing

but a mirror in which we view the actions and sufferings of

characters like ourselves, suspending our disbelief in their reality.

Metatheatre begins by sharpening awareness of the unlikeness of life

to dramatic art; it may end by making us aware of life's uncanny

likeness to art or illusion. By calling attention to the strangeness,

artificiality, illusoriness, or arbitrariness — in short, the theatricality --

of the life we live, it marks those frames and boundaries that

conventional dramatic realism would hide."

TURN TO ACT 3 SC 2Hamlet gives advice to the actors on how to act…ironic?

“speak the speech …as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the

tongue…do not saw the air too much with your hand…for in the

very torrent, tempest and…whirlwind of your passion, you must

acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness…be

not too tame neither…suit the action to the word…hold…the

mirror up to nature to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own

image… Oh, there be players that I have seen…imitate humanity

so abominably…”

ACT 3 SCENE 2

We will watch the Branagh version of the play within a play

Analysis of Polonius as acting the traitor Brutus (stabbed

soon after this scene, ironically).

Effect of metatheatre in this scene?

Watch how Hamlet acts during the play…is Claudius

demonstrating guilt or just frustration at Hamlet’s obnoxious

nature?

What do we learn about Claudius in his soliloquy in scene 3?