Humor Within The Play

            Hamlet is a play with jokes that we probably wouldn't be able to understand or pick up anymore with out studying Hamlet in depth for quite some time. But there are parts of the play where we can even find some comedic references with out faking a laugh because we don't understand what the hell is going on. Such as Polonius's rambling in II,ii , where he goes on and on sucking up and never shutting up. This is quite funny as he says Brevity is the Soul of Wit, yet he posses none of it, hence he has no wit. There's a similar scene like this in the graveyard in V,i as there's two clowns speaking in pros and saying words they do not comprehend and think they do, which makes it quite comedic when they do mess up. These are the easiest to pick up in my opinion, but there are many more scenes. Most of the comedy is directed towards Polonius, R & G and the courtures. The courtures were targeted by Shakespeare when ever he could because he was always surrounded by them and found them quite annoying as they were always suck ups, just like Polonius and R & G . Every time Hamlet played 'mad' there was a pun or joke made at the expense of some one else. During Shakespearian times, this joke would have been directed towards the actor to derive some sort of comedy to make the audience laugh at the actor, almost looking from Hamelt's point of view. Polonius is often at the but of these 'comedic' references. But this 'comedic' references were also directed at R & G and the courtures such as Osric through out the play. Also the exchanges between Hamlet and Claudius were a source of comedy, darker comedy but comedy none the less because of the wit involved. An example of this is found in IV, iii  , when Claudius sends the guards to find Polonius's body and Hamlet says "he will stay till you come." . Shakespeare also used dirty jokes such as, "Lady luck's private parts" which to us sounds kind of odd but to Hamlet's audience it would have been a very funny joke. Shakespeare regularly used jokes that would make the commoners laugh so that they could understand and laugh, not just the nobles.

             And why?Why would Shakespeare add comedy to a tragic play? Well so that you can distinguish what's tragic and what's not in the play. If he made the entire play tragic, you wouldn't much enjoy it as it would be depressing and also he would lose the 'roller coaster' effect of the audiences emotions. So in between tragic scenes in the play Shakespeare would add comedic relief so that the audience would get a break.

And those are just some examples of comedy found with in the play itself.

                   A few examples of hamlet's use of wit against Polonius during his 'mad' act.        

                            The Gravediggers scene at the beginning of Act V.