ABSTRACT
Joking relationships, a term coined by the British anthropologist Alfred Radcliffe-Brown based on his field work in South African indigenous communities, are in fact widespread throughout the world. He observed that potentially fraught relations, either between superior and inferior members of a group or between peers, are often negotiated in the form of formalised mockery of one party. Tensions are channelled into joking; affable relations are mediated in form of taunts. As in all joking relationships, Falstaff and Hal’s slanging match combines play with one-upmanship, fellowship with aggression. In view of underswell of hostility between them that runs through the play, their jesting is also a way of negotiating power relations, albeit under the cloak of wit. The jesting scenario in Romeo and Juliet is quite different to the one in Two Gentlemen of Verona. Quick, trenchant repartee is deployed as a weapon in both jousts of wit, but the rivalry between Romeo and Mercutio is inextricably entwined with companionship.
