Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site allegra.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!floyd!whuxlb!pyuxll!eisx!npoiv!npois!hogpc!houxm!mhuxa!mhuxi!mhuxt!eagle!allegra!cbf From: cbf@allegra.UUCP Newsgroups: net.jokes.d Subject: Re: signs of life Message-ID: <1656@allegra.UUCP> Date: Mon, 18-Jul-83 08:46:39 EDT Article-I.D.: allegra.1656 Posted: Mon Jul 18 08:46:39 1983 Date-Received: Tue, 19-Jul-83 08:48:59 EDT References: <5527@watmath.UUCP> Organization: Bell Labs, Murray Hill Lines: 15 I hate to have to break it to you, but many of Shakespeare's most intelligent characters are specialists in the art of punning. Only, the comic characters' puns are usually more obvious and heavy-handed. To use the play you mentionned, Hamlet's opening line (an aside in reaction to a speech by Claudius) is a pun with about three different layers of meaning: A little more than kin, and less than kind! (I.ii.65) And Hamlet (as Richard III and Iago and most other central Shakesperean heroes and anti-heroes) indulges in many others. Punning may be the lowest form of wit, but Shakespeare's best puns are a form of wit on their own terms. --allegra!cbf