The Delay of Polonius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Abstract

In a play built on Hamlet’s hesitation or delay, it should come as no surprise that Polonius’s own long-winded delaying finds a home. In fact, Polonius’s delay is intricately wound up with Hamlet’s in the play. Polonius may provide us with “comic relief” in Hamlet, but it is not of the gratuitous kind. Rather it is structurally necessary: his comic delay places Hamlet’s own tragic delay or hesitation in perspective; and it leads, in the turning point of the drama—the closet scene—to the stunning, fateful meeting of both “delaying” forces. This essay considers each of Polonius’s delays in Hamlet in detail and attempts to relate them to the larger action, and meaning, of Shakespeare’s drama.