Commentary notes (CN):

1. SMALL CAPS Indicate editions. Notes for each commentator are divided into three parts:

In the 1st two lines of a record, when the name of the source text (the siglum) is printed in SMALL CAPS, the comment comes from an EDITION; when it is in normal font, it is derived from a book, article, ms. record or other source. We occasionally use small caps for ms. sources and for works related to editions. See bibliographies for complete information (in process).

2. How comments are related to predecessors' comments. In the second line of a record, a label "without attribution" indicates that a prior writer made the same or a similar point; such similarities do not usually indicate plagiarism because many writers do not, as a practice, indicate the sources of their glosses. We provide the designation ("standard") to indicate a gloss in common use. We use ≈ for "equivalent to" and = for "exactly alike."

3. Original comment. When the second line is blank after the writer's siglum, we are signaling that we have not seen that writer's gloss prior to that date. We welcome correction on this point.

4. Words from the play under discussion (lemmata). In the third line or lines of a record, the lemmata after the TLN (Through Line Number] are from Q2. When the difference between Q2 and the authors' lemma(ta) is significant, we include the writer's lemma(ta). When the gloss is for a whole line or lines, only the line number(s) appear. Through Line Numbers are numbers straight through a play and include stage directions. Most modern editions still use the system of starting line numbers afresh for every scene and do not assign line numbers to stage directions.

5. Bibliographic information. In the third line of the record, where we record the gloss, we provide concise bibliographic information, expanded in the bibliographies, several of which are in process.

6. References to other lines or other works. For a writer's reference to a passage elsewhere in Ham. we provide, in brackets, Through Line Numbers (TLN) from the Norton F1 (used by permission); we call these xref, i.e., cross references. We call references to Shakespearean plays other than Ham. “parallels” (//) and indicate Riverside act, scene and line number as well as TLN. We call references to non-Shakespearean works “analogues.”

7. Further information: See the Introduction for explanations of other abbreviations. Click here for more information about browsing the entries and here for more information about the special symbols used in Hamletworks. Click the question mark icon above to remove this help message.

1773 gent

gent

Anon he finds him] Gentleman (ed. 1773): “There is great force in this description; and, though the play exhibited by these itinerants, is certainly a mock tragedy, we cannot think the above speech any way burlesque, though bad speakers often make it such, by vile utterance.”

1796 goethe

goethe <5:6:182> The very talented prompter is going to get the part of the actor who recites Pyrrhus. “he reads excellently. I have never heard anyone read better. And </p.182 > he really can respect the dividing line between declamation and emotionally charged recitation.”

“That’s it,” said Wilhelm. “That’s what we need. What a stroke of luck! We now have the actor who can recite the passage about the rugged Pyrrhus. . . . I would certainly have been very unhappy if that particular passage had been omitted; it would have crippled the play. . . . Shakespeare introduces this group of actors with a double purpose. First: the man who declaims the speech about the death of Priam with so much emotion, deeply moves Prince Hamlet. He pricks the conscience of the vacillating youth, and so this scene becomes the prelude to the play within the play, which makes such a deep impression on the king. Hamlet is put to shame by an actor who becomes so caught up in the sorrow of a fictitious personage, and conceives the idea of ‘catching the conscience’ of his stepfather the king by this means. What a marvelous monologues that is which concludes the second act! What joy it is to recite: [quotes from “O! what a rogue and peasant slave am I [end] . . . That he should weep for her?’] </p. 183>

1808 schlegel

schlegel

Anon he finds him] Schlegel (1808, rpt. 1846, pp. 406-7): “As one example of the many niceties of Shakespeare which have never been understood, I may allude to the style in which the player’s speech about Hecuba is conceived. It has been the subject of much controversy among the commentators, whether this was borrowed by Shakespeare from himself or from another, and whether, in the praise of the piece of which it is supposed to be a part, he was speaking seriously, or merely meant to ridicule the tragical bombast of his contemporaries. It seems never to have occured to them that this speech must not be judged by itself, but in connexion with the place where it is introduced. To distinguish it in the play itself as dramatic poetry, it was necessary that it should rise above the dignified poetry of the former in the same proportion that generally theatrical elevation soars above simple nature. Hence Shakespeare has composed the play in Hamlet altogether in sententious rhymes full of antitheses. But this solemn and measured tone did not suit a speech in which violent emotion ought to prevail, and the poet has no other expedient than the one of which he made choice: overcharging </p. 406><p. 407>the pathos. The language of the speech in question is certainly falsely emphatical; but yet this fault is so mixed up with true grandeur, that a player practised in artificially calling forth in himself the emotion he is imitating, may certainly be carried away by it. Besides, it will hardly be believed that Shakspeare knew so little of his art, as not to be aware that a tragedy in which Æneas had to make a lengthy epic relation of a transaction that happened so long before as the destruction of Troy, could neither be dramatical nor theatrical.”

1885 macd

macd

1509-12 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “—with an old man’s under-reaching blows—till his arm is so jarred by a missed blow, that he cannot raise his sword again.”