ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -a former court jester (= a man employed to amuse the king in the Middle Ages) whose skull is found by the men digging Ophelia’s grave in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. Hamlet picks up the skull and makes a famous speech, which begins: “Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio; A fellow of infinite jest …”

Detailed explanation-2: -Speaking to and about Yorick’s skull, Hamlet notes that Yorick’s lips no longer exist, which leads him to note that Yorick’s jokes, pranks, and songs are gone, too. The skull not only is evidence of the physical disintegration caused by death, but it also underscores that the very essence of a person comes to an end.

Detailed explanation-3: -The novel gets its name from Hamlet, Act V, Scene 1, in which Hamlet holds the skull of the court jester, Yorick, and says, “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is!"

Detailed explanation-4: -Yorick was the king’s jester: that is, the jester to King Hamlet, Prince Hamlet’s father, who is himself dead (murdered by Prince Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius). Yorick, being a jester, was ‘a fellow of infinite jest’ (a phrase David Foster Wallace co-opted for his famous novel, Infinite Jest), as we might expect.

Detailed explanation-5: -Who is Yorick? Yorick was the king’s jester, who Hamlet knew well as a child. Part of the quote is Hamlet saying that he remembers how funny Yorick was, and how he rode piggyback on Yorick’s back a thousand times.