Why does William Shakespeare use puns?

Answer 1

Sampson: I will be cruel with the maids--I will cut off their heads.

Gregory: The heads of the maids?

Sampson: Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads. Take it in what sense thou wilt.

(Most puns in Shakespeare are more suble than this, but Gregory and Sampson are not exactly the brightest buttons on the coat.)

Answer 2

This question could be asking for a definition or an example. The definition of a pun is a joke which relies on a word meaning more than one thing, or sounding like another word.

For examples, many if not most of the puns in Shakespeare are dirty, but here is one that isn't: Hamlet's first line in Hamlet. Hamlet's uncle (who is married to his mother) has just said "But now our cousin Hamlet, and our son" and Hamlet says under his breath "A little more than kin and less than kind." The pun is on "kin" and "kind"; Hamlet is more than kin to Claudius since he is both his nephew and stepson, but does not feel kindly disposed to him. (If "kind" were the German word, this pun would be awesome!)

Here's another: In Midsummer Night's Dream the nobs are watching the Rude Mechanicals put on a play. One of the characters is a Wall (not often a speaking part, but it is one here) about whom Demetrius says "It is the wittiest partition I ever heard discourse my lord." "Partition" is a pun because it not only means a wall but also part of a learned "discourse".

Here's a passage from Henry V. Henry is talking. "Indeed, the French may lay twenty French crowns to one, they will beat us; for they bear them on their shoulders. But it is no English treason to cut French crowns, and to-morrow the king himself will be a clipper." A Crown is a kind of gold coin but is also a word for a head. "French Crowns" can mean the coin or Frenchmen's heads. There is a further pun on "clipper", since you can "clip" coins by scraping off some of the gold at the edge and selling it and clip heads by cutting them off. In addition, a "French Crown" was a head which had lost its hair due to syphilis, the "French disease"

Now for a couple of dirty ones. It helps to know that cuckolds (men whose wives are cheating on them) were said to wear horns on their heads. Any time the word "horn" nears a conversation in Shakespeare, a dirty joke is soon to follow. So the song in As You Like It about hunters and horns: "The horn, the horn, the lusty horn." In Midsummer Night's Dream during the Mechanicals' play, in comes Moonshine and says "This lanthorn doth the horned moon present", and of course Demetrius cannot resist "He should have worn the horns on his head."

And finally, "thing" was slang for the male sex organ (this is why it's shocking when Hamlet says "the king is a thing") whereas women, not being similarly equipped, have "no thing". So what does this conversation from Hamlet mean?

Ham: Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

Oph: No, my lord.

Ham: I mean, my head in your lap.

Oph: Ay, my lord.

Ham: Do you think I meant country matters.

Oph: I think nothing, my lord.

Ham: That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.

Oph: What is, my lord?

Ham: Nothing.

Answer 3

Shakespeare and his contemporaries loved having fun with language. They loved thinking up new words, finding new ways of saying things, and playing with the multiple meanings of words. The audiences loved it too.

There are people these days who love language and having fun with it, too. If you can ask why Shakespeare loved making puns I guess you are not one of them.

Answer 4

Yea through out the book there was many puns... I know that at least one is in Act 1

Answer 5

The word "pun" does not appear in this Sonnet. There aren't any puns in it either.