Notes for lines 0-1017 ed. Bernice W. Kliman
| 295 In going back to schoole in Wittenberg, | 1.2.113 |
|---|
232 294 295 358 613 3352 1600- Lewkenor
Lewkenor
295 Wittenberg] Lewkenor (Discourse on Universities, 1600 -) says that Wittenberg was founded in 1502 and that it was famous for the controversies engendered there by Luther and his adherents.
1733 theo1
theo1
295 Wittenberg] Theobald (ed. 1733) points out the anachronism: “The poet uses a prolepsis here: for the University at Wittenberg was open’d by Frederick the 3rd Elector of Saxony in the year 1502, several ages later in time than the date of Hamlet. ”
Ed. note: For a continuation of this note, see the Hamlet character doc. in the NV book
1736 Stubbs
Stubbs: theo
295 Wittenberg] Stubbs (1736, pp. 13-14): “As to the Prolepsis, or in other Words, the mentioning of the University of Wittenberg long before its Establishment, thus antedating its Time, I shall not justify Shakespeare; I think it is a fault in him; but I cannot be of Opinion, that it has any bad Effect in this Tragedy.” He refers the reader to theo’s note.
1774 capn
capn See n 613 ≈ theo
295
1790 mal
mal ≈ theo without attribution
295 Wittenberg] Malone (ed. 1790): “In Shakspeare’s time there was an university at Wittenberg to which he made Hamlet propose to return.
“The university of Wittenberg was not founded till 1502, consequently did not exist in the time to which this play is referred. Malone.”
1793 v1793
v1793 = mal +
295 Wittenberg] Ritson (apud ed. 1793): “Our author may have derived his knowledge of this famous university from The Life of Iacke Wilton, 1594, or The History of Doctor Faustus, of whom the second report (printed in the same year [1594?] is said to be ‘written by an English gentleman, student in Wittenberg,, an University of Germany in Saxony.’ Ritson.”
Ste does not quote THEO (does he ever except when w/in someone else’s quotation? hardly ever, anyway), quotes MAL then Ritson
1803 v1803
v1803 = v1793
295 Wittenberg]
1805 esch
esch : Ritson +
295 Wittenberg] Eschenburg (ed. 1805): “Im deutschen Museum vom J. 1776, S. 476, findet man eine Anmerkung von Kästner über diesen Anachronismus.” [In the German Museum of 1776, vol. 476, Kästner discusses this anachronism.]
1813 v1813
v1813 = v1803
295 Wittenberg]
1821 v1821
v1821 = v1813 +
295 Wittenberg] Boswell (ed. 1821): “Or from Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, or a multitude of other publications of that period.”
Ed. note: Boswell thus pricks Ritson, who was Malone’s enemy.
1845? mHunter
mHunter: standard
295 Wittenberg] Hunter (1845?, BL 24,497):
“The name of this German university was made familiar ... by its frequent occurrence in [plays such as] Faustus.”
1853- mEliot
George Eliot
295 Wittenberg] Eliot (1853-) “Hamlet very young.”
1854 del2
del2 ≈ Ritson without attribution
295 Wittenberg] Delius (ed. 1854): “Sh. kannte Wittenberg als Universität wahrscheinlich aus der durch Volksbücher und Dramen in England damals sehr verbreiteten Sage vom Doctor Faustus, welche grösstentheils dort spielt.” [Sh. probably knew Wittenberg as a university through the saga of Doctor Faustus, widely distributed at that time in England through chapbooks and plays which for the most part played there.]
1855 Wade
Wade
295 Wittenberg] Wade (1855, p. 4): “ . . . that oppressive sense of the unfathomable wonder of this awful universe, which has been laid deeply in his being by his studies and meditations at Wittenberg, finds its instant sky-obscuring superstructure in those startling events which greet and probably cause his first entrance upon the world of action—his father’s sudden death and his mother’s speedily-following incestuous marriage with her husband’s brother; who steps, too, between him and his election to the sovereignty. All his apprehension of the ills and villanies of social life are at once realised upon his accession to it, and we see that he has been already contemplating an immediate retreat from it and its attendant disgusts, back to the unmolested quiet of an university; and dissuaded from the projected retirement by the importunities of the king and his mother, and thus undecidingly compelled into the common current of the world, all the uses of which seem to him ‘weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,’ we hear him intensely desiring that his fleshly double-solidity would melt; ‘Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew;’ or that God’s canon had not forbidden him the privilege of self-removal from the tiring presence of all mortal things. And remove himself he would, did not his feeble will nullify the dictates of his strong inclination . . . .”
1861 wh1
wh1: Blackstone (via v1821) +
295 schoole in Wittenberg] White (ed. 1861): “—i.e., to the University, where men of all ages passed indefinite periods, and sometimes their whole lives. See the Note on ‘My brother Jacques he keeps at school,’ [AYL 1.1.5 (8)]. There is even more occasion for a Note here than there; for, upon a comparison of this passage with that [3352] in which the Grave-digger makes Hamlet thirty years old, Blackstone could charge Shakespeare with a slip of memory.”
1868 c&mc
c&mc ≈ wh1 without attribution (minus ref. to 3352)
295 schoole]
Clarke &
Clarke (ed. 1868): “‘Going to school’ was a term formerly used for being at college or other place of academical study and instruction. In the opening scene of [
AYL 1.1.5 (8)], Orlando speaks of his brother, Jaques de Bois, as being ‘at school,’ although he is then a young man grown, and older than the speaker.”
c&mc: standard
295 Wittenberg]
Clarke &
Clarke (ed. 1868): “There was a university at Wittenberg in Shakespeare’s time, and he has therefore, for dramatic purposes, assumed it to be in existence at the period of this play’s story.”
1869 elze
elze
295 Wittenberg]
Elze (ed. 1869,
apud Furness, ed. 1877): “Sh. had to send the
Dane Hamlet to some
northern university, and probably none other was so well known to him or to his audience as Wittenberg.
1870 rug1
rug1: Gervinus
295 Wittenberg] Moberly (ed. 1870): “Hamlet wishes, as Gervinus remarks, at the age of thirty years, to go, not as Laertes does, to Paris, the centre of frivolous gaiety (and study music and fencing there), but to Wittenberg, the university dear to the Protestant heart of England from its memories of Luther; dear also for its publication of a host of popular books, such as the tale of Faustus. From this student’s life he cannot conceive Horatio’s playing truant”
1872 cln1
cln1: Ritson + in magenta underlined; ≈ theo on anachronism without attribution
295 Wittenberg] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “Ritson suggests that Shakespeare knew of Wittenberg from the story of Dr. Faustus, of which the scene is laid there; Luther, however, had made it famous all over the world. The mention of it here is a great anachronism, for the University of Wittenberg was not founded till the year 1502.”
1872 hud2
hud2 ≈ wh1 without attribution + some immaterial additions
295 schoole] Hudson (ed. 1872): “School was applied to places not only of academical, but also of professional study; and in the olden time men were wont to spend their whole lives in such cloistered retirements of learning. So that we need not suppose Hamlet was ‘going back to school’ as an undergraduate. See page 94, note 18 [in AYL].”
hud2 : standard
295 Wittenberg] Hudson (ed. 1872): “Certain events of the Reformation had made the University of Wittenberg well known in England in Shakespeare’s time.”
1877 Wright AYL
Wright AYL ≈ hud2 without attribution
295 schoole] Wright (1877, AYL n. 5): “he keeps at school. For ‘school’ in the sense of university, compare [Ham. 295, and he quotes 294b-96]”
1877 v1877
v1877: mal; Ritson; Boswell; Elze
295 Wittenberg]
1881 hud3
hud3 =hud2
295 schoole]
1883 wh2
wh2 : standard gloss; elze without attribution
295 Wittenberg] White (ed. 1883): “The university was not established until a.d.1502. Luther made it famous. S. used its name as that of a northern school, to which a Dane of his day might go.”
1884 Feis
Feis
295 Wittenberg] Feis (1884, rpt. 1970, p. 67): represented for Sh. the “free thoughts of the Humanist. [There Hamlet] has become imbued with the new spirit that shook the world. [His] desire [to return there] represents his inclination towards free, humanistic studies.”
1885 macd
macd
295 Wittenberg] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “Note that Hamlet was educated in Germany—at Wittenberg, the university where in 1508 Luther was appointed professor of Philosophy. Compare [232; i.e. Laertes returning to France].”
1885 macd
macd
295 Wittenberg] MacDonald (ed. 1885, p. 62): “His university life at Wittenberg is suddenly interrupted by a call to the funeral of his father, whom he dearly loves and honours. . . . he appears in a company for which he is unfit only for the sake of desiring permission to leave the court, and go back to his studies at Wittenberg.*”
<n> <p. 62> MacDonald (ed. 1885): “*Roger Ascham, in his Schoolmaster, if I mistake not, sets the age, up to which a man should be under tutors, at twenty-nine.” </p. 62> </n>
1899 ard1
ard1: Ritson in v1821, Dr. Faustus; white on open age for attending—all without attribution +
295 Wittenberg] Dowden (ed. 1899): “In the Tragedy of Hoffman (1602), the foolish Ierom says, ‘I am not foole, I have bin to Wittenberg, where wit growes.’
1901 gol
gol
295 Wittenberg] Gollancz (ed. 1901): Since it was a foreign university, Hamlet might have gone there at “any age, after his earlier education had been completed.”
1904 ver
ver = Herford; Brandes (1898); his own intro., + in magenta underlined
295 Wittenberg] Verity (ed. 1904) points out that Luther “nailed his famous 95 theses in 1517” on the door of the “Schlosskirche.” “His tomb and that of his fellow Reformer, Melanchthon, are in the Church. The University was merged with in the University of Halle in 1817. Wittenberg lies on the Elbe in the Prussian province of Saxony, about 50 miles north of Berlin. Brandes notes that the mention of Wittenberg as Hamlet’s university is an accurate piece of ‘local colour,’ since it was the favourite university with Danish students.”
1929 trav
trav
295 in]
Travers (ed. 1929) interprets
in as equivalent to
of. 1935 Wilson
Wilson WHH
295 Wilson (1935, p. 115) supposes that the king wants Ham. close at hand to watch him; he is conscious of being a usurper and is ready to forestall any attempt to dislodge him from the throne. He’s not worried about the murder because he is certain no one can know it.
1938 parc
parc
295 Wittenberg ] Parrott & Craig (ed. 1938): “a German university founded in 1502.”
1939 kit2
kit2: standard on Wittenberg; = ver on Halle + analogues
295 schoole] Kittredge (ed. 1939): "your university studies. The university of Wittenberg (founded in 1502; united with Halle in 1817) was at the height of its reputation in Shakespeare’s day and was much esteemed in England because of its connection with Luther and the Reformation. Chettle in his tragedy of Hoffman (ca. 1602) speaks of ’Wittenberg, where wit growes’ (ed. 1631, Cr). Nashe, however, attacks the institution in The Unfortunate Traveller, 1594 (ed. McKerrow, II, 247 ff.)."
1953 Alexander
Alexander
295 Wittenberg]
Alexander (lecture 1953, published 1955, pp. 34-5): <p. 34> In the second scene “we learn of Wittenberg and its attractions for Hamlet. </p. 34> <p. 35> This . . . satisfies us that he is a scholar, so that when father and son meet in the closing scene of the act, not merely two types, but two ages confront one another. Wittenberg—the University—is face to face with the heroic past. From this opposition are generated the two conflicting emotions that constitute the idea that informs the play.” </p. 35>
1980 pen2
pen2: standard
295 schoole] Spencer (ed. 1980): “university. Wittenberg was famous as Luther’s university (founded in 1502), where in 1517 he nailed up his ninety-five theses. Elizabethan audiences also knew it as Dr Faustus’s university, from Marlowe’s play.”
1980 pen2
pen2
295-9 Barton (ed. 1980, p. 39) declares that by making Hamlet remain at court, the king forces Hamlet to experience every day what his uncle has done: usurp the throne, defile his mother, and murder his father.
1982 ard2
ard2: Wilson, Brandes, Faustus, Lewkenor
295 Wittenberg] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “This German university, founded in 1502, had become famous through its association with Luther, Melanchthon, and the reformed religion. But to note with Dover Wilson that Hamlet’s university was Protestant is less important than to learn from Brandes that it was the favourite university of Danes studying abroad. (Cf. I.ii.12n.) In the decade 1586-95 it had two students named Rosenkrantz and one Gyldenstjerne (Dollerup, p. 128). Its name was well known to the Elizabethans and had been familiarized in the theatre by Dr Faustus. Samuel Lewkenor (A Discourse of Foreign Cities) described it in 1600 as a ’learned seminary of the arts’ in which ’many worthy writers have . . . received their education’”
1985 cam4
cam4
295 Wittenberg] Edwards (ed. 1985): "The University of Wittenberg, founded in 1502. Famous in Elizabethan England as the university of Luther--and of Dr. Faustus."
1987 oxf4
oxf4: OED (sb1 7)
295 schoole] Hibbard (ed. 1987) for university, and still used in that sense in North America, though obsolete in England since the mid-seventeenth century. See Hobbes’s Leviathan, 1651, quoted by OED.
oxf4
295 Wittenberg] Hibbard (ed. 1987): "Well known in England as Luther’s university and the birthplace of Protestantism, Wittenberg was also familiar to Elizabethan playgoers as the home of Dr. Faustus. It seems to have been much frequented in Shakespeare’s day by Danes studying abroad."
1988 bev2
bev2: standard
295 to schoole] Bevington (ed. 1988): “i.e., to your studies.”
bev2: standard
295 Wittenberg] Bevington (ed. 1988): “famous German university founded in 1502.”
2006 ard3q2
ard3q2
295 schoole] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “university. The assumption is that, like Laertes, and like Horatio at [352-64], Hamlet wishes to continue with the overseas studies he interrupted to attend his father’s funeral, his mother’s marriage and the new King’s coronation. We learn at [3334-52] that Hamlet is 30 —which would make him an unusually mature student by Elizabethan standards. It is Shakespeare’s addition to the story to designate all the young men as students —most obviously Hamlet, Horatio, Laertes, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but also implicitly Marcellus and Barnardo.”
Ed. note: Laertes’ status as a student is uncertain. The only study mentioned, and perhaps not literally, is music (966). Only Hamlet and Horatio are certainly students.
ard3q2: standard
295 Wittenberg] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “city in Germany, home of a university founded in 1502 and attended in reality by Martin Luther (who became a member of its staff in 1509 and nailed his famous 95 theses to the door of the Schlosskirke in 1517) and in fiction by Dr Faustus: the town is mentioned several times in Marlowe’s Dr Faustus (c. 1592).”
2008 Pequigney
Pequigney: Jenkins; ≈ Hibbard; +
295 Wittenberg] Pequigney (2008, private communication): What can be inferred from the fact that Hamlet had studied at Wittenberg for an unspecified period is problematic. Probably less than most editors and critics surmise. The earliest commentaries annotate the Wittenberg of Doctor Faustus but not that of Luther, and for Harold Jenkins Wittenberg’s being Protestant is less important than that it was the favorite university of Danes studying abroad (436). The university at Wittenberg in Saxony was founded in 1502—fifteen years before Martin Luther nailed up his 95 theses there to unleash the Reformation—but we have no way of telling what the playwright knew, if much of anything, about the time and facts of its origin. Not a word appears in his play about its faculty, curriculum, history, or Protestant character. He may well have assumed that so internationally renowned a seat of learning would have had to be as old as Oxford and Cambridge. He presents a fictionalized, predated, feasibly medieval version of the German university that had been attended by two of the characters, the Prince and the pauper Horatio (3.2.56-9 [1909]), who must have been on scholarship, both from a pre-Protestant, feasibly medieval Denmark, still ruled, as once the country had actually been, by Catholic monarchs, here, until recently, by the fabled King Hamlet. Neither of these Wittenberg alumni in any way reflects the Lutheranism adopted, apparently much later, by their alma mater. If schooling at Wittenberg could prove Hamlet a Protestant, he would be the only one in the Shakespearean canon.
2008 Kliman
Kliman on anachronism
295 Wittenberg] Kliman (2008): When this institution is mentioned, the audience has no idea that other action in the play will refer to times long before Luther brought this university into prominence [Danish power over England in the eleventh-century is faintly referred to, over 1000 lines later, in 1826-7 and enlarged upon in 2723-8]. Nor would the audience be disturbed by the other shifts in time mentioned here and there. For the first half of the play at least, the audience can assume that the time is not far removed from their own. Because the king and later Hamlet need England’s dirty work, Sh. brings into play the power an early, pre-Christian Denmark had over England—with perhaps a jab at contemporary England.
