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Neophilologus (2012) 96:487495
DOI 10.1007/s11061-011-9276-y
Robert J. Cardullo
Published online: 22 June 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011
Abstract In a play built on Hamlets hesitation or delay, it should come as no surprise that Poloniuss own long-winded delaying nds a home. In fact, Poloniuss delay is intricately wound up with Hamlets in the play. Polonius may provide us with comic relief in Hamlet, but it is not of the gratuitous kind. Rather it is structurally necessary: his comic delay places Hamlets own tragic delay or hesitation in perspective; and it leads, in the turning point of the dramathe closet sceneto the stunning, fateful meeting of both delaying forces. This essay considers each of Poloniuss delays in Hamlet in detail and attempts to relate them to the larger action, and meaning, of Shakespeares drama.
Keywords Shakespeare Hamlet Polonius Comedy Tragedy Foil character
In a play built on Hamlets hesitation or delay, it should come as no surprise that Poloniuss own long-winded delays nd a home. What is a surprise, however, is the fact that the nature of his delay, as well as its relationship to Hamlets own, has escaped analysis in the criticism thus far published on Poloniuss character.
Polonius hesitates or delays immediately upon entering the play for the rst time. Laertes is set to sail for Paris and is about to take his leave from Ophelia when Polonius enters (appropriately, on Laertes line I stay too long) and says, atI.iii.5559:
Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,And you are stayed for. Theremy blessing with thee,
R. J. Cardullo (&)
Izmir University of Economics, Sakarya Caddesi No: 156, 35330 Balova, Izmir, Turkey e-mail: [email protected]
The Delay of Polonius in Shakespeares Hamlet
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488 R. J. Cardullo
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. (Shakespeare 1997, 1680, I.iii. 5559)
We expect Polonius to let Laertes go after he gives him his blessing, but father then goes on to give son, in more than twenty lines, the commandments of social living. The whole Polonius-Laertes-Ophelia subplot in Hamlet, introduced here for the rst time in the play, itself could be looked at as a kind of delaying actiona pause coming as it does right after...