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By "protest," Gertrude doesn't mean "object" or "deny"—these meanings postdate Hamlet. The principal meaning of "protest" in Shakespeare's day was "vow" or "declare solemnly," a meaning preserved in our use of "protestation." When we smugly declare that "the lady doth protest too much," we almost always mean that the lady objects so much as to lose credibility. Gertrude says that Player Queen affirms so much as to lose credibility. Her vows are too elaborate, too artful, too insistent. More cynically, the queen may also imply that such vows are silly in the first place, and thus may indirectly defend her own remarriage.
Comments
Lance is straight?
Posted by: Bill | September 25, 2008 4:18 AM
Kind of ruins all those nights you spent alone with my high school year book, a tube of Luberderm and a box of tissues, doesn't it?
Posted by: Lance | September 25, 2008 5:58 AM
"doth protest too much?"
Posted by: Bill | September 26, 2008 6:12 AM
By "protest," Gertrude doesn't mean "object" or "deny"—these meanings postdate Hamlet. The principal meaning of "protest" in Shakespeare's day was "vow" or "declare solemnly," a meaning preserved in our use of "protestation." When we smugly declare that "the lady doth protest too much," we almost always mean that the lady objects so much as to lose credibility. Gertrude says that Player Queen affirms so much as to lose credibility. Her vows are too elaborate, too artful, too insistent. More cynically, the queen may also imply that such vows are silly in the first place, and thus may indirectly defend her own remarriage.
Posted by: Lance | September 28, 2008 6:04 AM
Wow. Lance really *is* a flaming thespian.
Posted by: choolie | September 28, 2008 7:33 AM
WAY TO GO LANCE HWATEVER YOU R SAING THERE111
(i mean!!!)
Posted by: duane ingalls glasscock | September 28, 2008 8:37 AM