In Shakespeare’s Work, One Sees Intentional Artifice – One Sees That He Is Not In Earnest, But That He Is Playing With Words” Leo Tolstoy Notes

In Shakespeare's work, one sees intentional artifice - one sees that he is not in earnest, but that he is playing with words" Leo Tolstoy Shakespeare's use of wordplay is present in each of his plays and reveals not only the aural emphasis of Renaissance drama but also contemporary concerns with truth, representation and interpretation. From the comedies where double meaning allows for bawdy jokes and insubordination from cheeky servants and clowns, to the tragedies in which "double knavery" is the undoing of virtuous and powerful men, wordplay is present. Whether this can be seen as 'intentional artifice' is debatable, it seems more prominent for Shakespeare to use wordplay as a way of exploring artifice and falsehood and the presentation of it, rather part of his aesthetic intentions. Wordplay, that is the use of puns, polysemy and ambiguous terms, features not only to enrich dialogue or the assert psychology of a particular character but as a means of creating and driving plot and form. In The Merchant of Venice (1597), Othello (1603) and Macbeth (1606), specific acts of linguistic interpretation are used as the basis for dramatic action and to create a specific mood with in the play. The linguistic structure of punning - that is the employment of a double meaning whereby one can say one thing and mean another, often something either sexual or subversive, is freed from the normal rules of appropriateness by deniability; one can simply claim that it was the more virtuous meaning that was intended. This structure can be seen more broadly in the plays in which Shakespeare is most 'earnestly' concerned with language. For instance, In The Merchant of Venice, the concurrent plots of the Jew's bond in Venice and the caskets in Belmont, both contain and emphasis the importance of interpretation. It is significant also that the 'environments' of these two plot stands, one of mercantile 'real life' Venice, and the other more romantic setting of Belmont underline the importance of 1 

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