Published 2018
“…When accused of a cloudy disposition by his uncle-turned-evil-stepfather, Hamlet replies, ‘Not so, my lord, I am too much i’th’ sun’ (I. ii. 67). ‘Ask for
me tomorrow’, says Mercutio, bleeding to death, ‘and
you shall find
me a grave man’ (Romeo and Juliet III. i. 93-4).3 Samuel Johnson registered Shakespeare’s ubiquitous ‘quibbles’ as defects while still admiring his gall: ‘A quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was content to
lose it’.4 But for others, including the dying Keats, puns are a weakness worth having. …”
Journal article