COMIC RELIEF

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COMIC RELIEF
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What a piece of work is a man
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What is this quintessence of dust?
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Comic Relief

• The use of a funny scene to interrupt a
  succession of intensely dramatic moments

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Other Comic Relief Scenes in Shakespeare

• The Nurse in Romeo and Juliet

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Other Comic Relief Scenes

• The Porter in Macbeth

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Comic Relief in Hamlet

• Act V, scene I the gravediggers scene

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C.S. LEWIS

• Then comes the comic reliefsurely the strangest
  comic relief ever written-comic relief beside an
  open grave, with a further discussion of
  suicide
• Through Shakespeares Eyes by Joseph Pearce

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Hamlet Comic Relief

• Up to this point in the play, Polonius has
  provided comic relief.
• But both Polonius and Ophelia are now dead.

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Solid facts about comic relief

• Shakespeare uses lower class people to play such
  scenes
• Allows a freer use of vulgarity and earthiness
• Comedy is full of topical references (based on
  events of the day)
• Often uses puns, slapstick, and riddles

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The Gravediggers

• Also referred to as the clowns
• Medieval clown were often used to play up
  physical and vulgar comedy
• As buffoons, able to talk about risky topics

• Heres a skull

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Topical References

• Suicide a double standard where the Church was
  concerned
• A richer person who committed suicide more likely
  to be buried with proper burial
• If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should
  have been buried out o Christian burial (V.i.24
  26).

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Elizabethan View of Suicide

• Saw those who committed suicide as perpetrators
  not as victims
• Guilty of felonia de ipso or felo de se- a vile
  crime against oneself.
• http//elsinore.ucsc.edu/burial/burial/
• Suicide.html

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Churchs View

• Despair seen as an unforgivable sin against God
• Despair might be the vehicle of the Devil
  (Horatio afraid that the ghost might tempt
  Hamlet toward the flood or off a cliff)
• Excluded from Gods grace
• Denied Christian burial (Ophelia receives maimed
  rites.) lodged in grounds unsanctified (232).

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Burial Very Harsh

• a woman who committed suicide received the
  following treatment
• carried from her sayd howse to some cross way
  neare the townes end and theare tht should ha
  (ve) stake dreven thorowgh her brest and so be
  buried with the stake to be scene for a memorayll
  that others goinge by myght take heede
• Richard Greaves, Society and Religion in
  Elizabethan England, p. 535.

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Sidenote

• Exceptions were sometimes made for those who were
  determined to be not in their right minds.
• Perhaps Ophelia falls into this category.
• Of the 803 verdicts delivered to the Kings
  Bench in the decade before the writing of Hamlet,
  only 5 were determined to be insane.
• http//elsinore.ucsc.edu/burial/burial
• Suicide. html

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Gravedigger and Hamlet

• Battle of wits between clown and Hamlet
• Hamlet doesnt win!

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Comic Elements Used in Scene

• Puns
• Malapropisms
• Irony
• Slapstick
• Riddles

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Comic Elements

• Puns play on words
• A was the first that ever bore arms. (l. 34)
• Could he dig without arms? (l.38)

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Malapropisms- mixing/confusing/substituting words
in a comic manner

• It must be se offendendo.
• (self offense!)

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Skull

• Used as centerpiece on Elizabethan banquet tables
• Serves as a memento mori- a reminder of death (as
  if a person needs to be reminded after reading 4
  acts of Hamlet!)

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Carpe diem

• Seize the day!

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2.

• Whether or not Ophelia should be buried in
  Christian cemetery
• Is she to be buried in Christian burial when she
  willfully seeks her own salvation? 1-2

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3.

• Who is he who builds stronger than a mason, a
  shipwright, or a carpenter?

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3. cont.

• The gravemaker-his houses last until doomsday 60

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4. Comic elements

• See other notes

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5.

• Yorick was the kings jester. Hamlet knew him.
  Seeing his skull personalizes the corruption of
  the body

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5.

• Now get you to my ladys chamber, and tell her
  let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she
  must come.194-6

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6.

• The physical body decays-could be used for mortar
  or to stop a beer barrel.
• Alexander the Great, a world conqueror, becomes
  loam
• Caesar plugs up a wall to keep out the wind.

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7.

• Her death was doubtful (questionable)
• The priest thinks she should not have had even
  the prayers that she did...just shards and
  pebbles

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• 40, 000 brotherscould not make up my sum l.
  274 on
• Hamlet jumps into the grave with Laertes-fights
  him