Thursday, November 1, 2012

Which of the following is the Prince of Cats referred to in Romeo and Juliet? A. Morris B. Dizzy Gillespie C. Feline in the medieval story of...

Of these three, only C is a serious answer.  The others
are jokes.


Morris was an actual cat who has performed in TV
commericals for a brand of cat food since the late 1970s.  Dizzy Gillespie was a jazz
musician.  Whoever wrote this question is playing on the fact that the slang of
Gillespie's time used the term "cat" to refer to men in general, and in particular to
"cool" men.  Obviously, Shakespeare knew nothing of Morris the Cat or Dizzy
Gillespie.


By contrast, the stories of Reynard the Fox were
very well known in Shakespeare's time.  They feature Reynard as an anthropomorphic and
very tricky fox.  The stories were satires against the abuses of the powerful during
late medieval times.  One of the characters in these stories was a cat (also
anthropomorphized) named Tybalt or Tibert.


In
Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio uses "Prince of Cats" as a derisive
nickname for Tybalt.  This is partly a reference to the Reynard stories and partly a
derisive pun playing on an Italian word for male genitalia.

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