Being an Aguecheek in Shakespeare's Witty World

On Thursday, I attended Adam Zucker's talk about Twelfth Night and jesting. This talk was compelling to me because it centered on a topic that I am sadly familiar with: failing to understand jokes from Shakespeare's time. Apparently, I am not the only one with this problem, namely because many insult-words have vanished without a trace of linguistic history for scholars to follow. Yet, despite their confusion over the insults used, a modern audience will laugh at early-modern jokes that they do not understand. This point brought the talk around to Twelfth Night, namely, the character Sir Aguecheek. Aguecheek is the highly scorned, bumbling fool of this play who is willing to laugh at the complicated jokes and puns being bantered around him, despite the fact that he cannot comprehend them. Though we in the audience laugh at Aguecheek's stupidity, in reality, we are also Aguecheeks because we understand the jests no better than the inept, blundering nobleman. According to Mr. Zucker, it is the historian's job to save the jokes in their original form and help us poor audience members gain some clarity and appreciation for the humor. His new book in the making hopes to do just that, as well as trace the history of many insult-words, in particular, the word "stupid". Being myself interested in linguistic history and hoping to improve my understanding of early-modern English drama, I found this talk intriguing, witty, and highly enjoyable.