SHAKESPEARE FAVORED MULTIPLE MEANINGS EVERY CHANCE HE GOT. Here is my post about William Empson’s analysis of some eight meanings or overtones in the line “Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang”. Here is my post about Empson’s claim that he got all his insights into Shakespeare by looking at all the suggested interpretations by scholars and critics in the Arden Shakespeare and deciding that all the suggestions were right.
John Andrews, in addition to arguing that the Elizabethan language, “unanchored” by standardized spelling, led to multiple meanings, argues that Shakespeare loved ambiguities. Rosenbaum quotes Andrews: “I find this over and over in the works: if there’s any possibility for it to have multiple meanings, it will.”