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A couple of selections from Eric Partridge\u2019s book on the bawdy in Shakespeare. <\/p>\n
\u201cFlatulence was, in Shakespeare\u2019s day, the source and the target of humour and wit among all classes: nowadays, its popularity as a subject is, in the main, confined to the lower and lower-middle classes and to morons elsewhere. The days when, as at the end of the 17th century, a pamphlet dealing with noisy venting and written by a pseudonymous Don Fartaudo could be published and enjoyed and when the ability to play tunes by skillfully regulating and controlling one\u2019s windy expressions was regarded as evidence of a most joyous and praiseworthy form of wit, \u2013 such days have \u2018gone with the wind.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n
On Hamlet\u2019s \u201cbuz buz\u201d to Polonius: \u201cHamlet, already possessed of the news, as, referring to Roscius, he subtly shows the far from subtle Polonius, is irritated by the old busybody\u2019s stupidity: to indicate his irritation, he makes that \u2018rude noise,\u2019 imitative of the breaking of wind, which, from probably even before Shakespeare\u2019s days, had been \u2018the groundlings\u2019 means of showing their disapproval of bad acting, and thus repeats his intimation that he new knew all about the arrival of the actors. When Polonius, thinking that this unexpectedly course \u2018raspberry\u2019 . . . signifies the prince\u2019s disbelief, solemnly avers, \u2018Upon mine honour,\u2019 Hamlet puns on the word honour [\u2018on her\u2019] and impugns Polonius\u2019s conception of honour by saying \u2018The came each actor on his ass,\u2019 thus passing from wind-breaking to the source of the noise.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A couple of selections from Eric Partridge\u2019s book on the bawdy in Shakespeare. \u201cFlatulence was, in Shakespeare\u2019s day, the source and the target of humour and wit among all classes: nowadays, its popularity as a subject is, in the main, confined to the lower and lower-middle classes and to morons elsewhere. The days when, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature"],"yoast_head":"\n