An example of polysemy in shakespeare’s hamlet

An example of Polysemy in Shakespeare’s Hamlet
For Foucault, the polysemic nature of language renders a statement neither completely visible nor completely hidden. Language after its “meaning” isextracted, always contains leftover meaning—a “proliferation of thoughts, images, or fantasies”. (Bobbitt, 67) In class it’s been discussed that during the Baroque age, polysemy is used to bring acertain ambiguity to language that leaves literature open to different interpretations because of the author’s conscious and deliberate use of the arbitrary of signs. The double meanings and “subtle”hints that writers used as the norm in that time, lend the reader the chance to believe the he is part of the story, it’s development and “guess” the final outcome. William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is notthe exception to the rule, we must bear in mind that it is a play and that, furthers the reader’s belief in interaction between him and the work. This doesn’t mean his plays should be read withparanoia of conspiracy, but coming in with the afterthought, sheds another light in the previously thought, harmless acted entertainment.
I wish to focus on a specific phrase from the First Act, 2ndscene, and here Hamlet’s (sr.) brother Claudius King of Denmark is giving a calculated speech, were he mourns his brother, reminds his people that Denmark is at war, excuses his marriage to his ex-sisterin law, and then talks about matters of state, being very efficient if his address. In the beginning of the scene Claudius talks of the grief everyone is feeling because of his brother’s death, buteven though the pain is a lot and every subject will carry on mourning in their hearts, it has to be moderated and think of ourselves (the country). Because of this it’s ok to marry you late brother’swife, “…our sometimes sister, now our Queen,…,With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,/ In equal scale weighing delight and dole,/ Taken to wife.”(Shakespeare, 113-114) Here he mixes...