Word: polonius
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...Polonius, as Hume Cronyn sees him, is a buffoon, who turns most of his scenes with Hamlet into slapstick comedy. Cronyn wrings from the part all the humor that is there and a good deal, I think, that is not. He is Polonius from Hamlet's point of view, a "tedious old fool," without a trace of the skilled counselor who had been invaluable to Denmark...
...scepter, but although the telephone company can command more men than Henry V could put in the field at Harfleur, this is a conflict of clowns rather than kings. As in Shakespeare's day, the faithful friend-Mercutio, Horatio or Mark Antony-is in short supply, but Polonius, prototype of the company man, seems to have proliferated...
...gills with this type of play. In Caesar and Cleopatra (as well as the other two "Puritan" plays) he was poking fun at this genre and pulling the pedestal out from under the Romantic hero. The play is, then--if I may run the risk of Polonius' excessive categorization--an example of the didactic parody - melodrama. Brilliant comedy, epigrammatic wit, and hectic melodrama are here in abundance--but all in the service of solid intellectual ideas...
...Uncle Claudius. It is Polonius. Polonius is Ophelia's father...
...naughty, Hamlet," says Hamlet's mother. "You have stabbed Polonius...