Infinite Jest - Title

Title

The novel's title is from Hamlet, Act V, Scene 1. 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!"

Wallace's working title for Infinite Jest was A Failed Entertainment.

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