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Line 1849-50 - Commentary Note (CN)

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.

Notes for lines 1018-2022 ed. Eric Rasmussen

For explanation of sigla, such as jen, see the editions bib.

1849-50 Ham. Speake the speech I pray you as I pronoun’d | it to you, trip-

1710 Gildon

Gildon

1849-92 Speake . . . vses it] Gildon (1710, pp. 399, 402): <p. 399> “In Hamlet’s speech to the Players, Shakespear gives his whole Knowledge of the Drama. . . . </p. 399> <p. 402> These Precepts of Shakespear are as valuable, as any thing in him, for indeed thoroughly study’d and understood they teach the whole Art of the Stage, which relates to the Representation or the Actors . . . . ” </p. 402> Ed. note: Gildon continues with acting of his own day, its defects and beauties.

1736 stubbs

stubbs

[Stubbs] (1736p. 38): “The Prince’s Directions to the Players are exceeding good, and are evidently brought in as Lessons for the Players, who were Shakespeare’s Companions, and he thought this a very proper Occasion to animadvert upon those Faults which were disagreeable to him. Whoever reads these Observations of his, if one may prove a Thing by a negative Argument, must believe Shakespeare to have been an excellent Actor himself; for we can hardly imagine him to have been guilty of the Mistakes he is pointing out to his Brethren.”

[N.B. Stubbs goes on to see remarks as not suitable to the dignity of tragedy]

1765- davies

davies

1849-50 Davies (1765-): “There was a letter published originally in ye 13th vol. of ye Annual Register & since republished in the article of E. Alleyn in ye Biogr. Brittanica written by G. Peck [?] to one Martin both of them supposed by ye contents to be jovial companions of Shakespeare & B— Jonson— In which ye writer gives an account [some illegible insertions] of a dispute between Shakespeare & Alleyn concerning Hamlets advice to ye Players—the latter claiming the merit of being the real author of it & charging Shakespeare with stealing it from him in the several conversations wch had passed between them. [xed out part I am not recording] It appears from the letter as if this charge of Allen had rather displeased Shakespeare—Ben Jonson interposed in ye most friendly manner & seems to have reconciled matters by a joke wch. includes a very handsome compliment to Allen. The affair said Ben needs no contention; you stole it from Ned no doubt, have you not seen him act times out of number? —The letter is a curiosity—Letter recited [better? recited] —

“Though there can be no doubt that Allen acted many characters in the plays of Shakespeare B. Jonson & Beaumont & Fletcher yet his name is not to be found in the List of Actors printed in ye several Editions of these authors. This perhaps may be easily accounted by his building a playhouse of his own & acting no where else”

1770 gentlemen

gentleman

1849-1883] Gentleman (1770, p. 23): “Hamlet’s advice to the Players is as just and sensible a lecture upon several theatrical excellencies and errors as ever was penned; but few who perform the part have a right to deliver it; being in many instances guilty themselves of those very absurdities which they recommend a reformation of.” </p. 23>

1777 griffith

griffith

1849-93 Speake . . . it] Griffith (1777, 2:287-8): <p.287> “Shakespeare not only affords documents to real life, but supplies them even to the mimic one; as may be seen in this Scene, where he makes Hamlet give instructions to Actors how they should perform their parts. But as there is not moral to be extracted from the passage, I shall not quote it here.

“But in these rules, however excellent in themselves, may be considered rather as strictures on bad performers, than precepts for their reformation. Actors, like Poets, must be born, not made; and a receipt to form an Actor, may be considered in the same light with the one to frame an Epic Poem. It is not so much for want of notion, as of Nature, that so many of the Dramatis Personæ are found to be deficient in the expression of sentient, and representation of character.

“Talents are as necessary t Actors, as Genius is to Authors; if I may be allowed such a distinction of terms—but neither are to be acquired in the schools. All Mr. Garrick’s art, without his nature, would produce no effect, as may be seen in many who have laboriously, but vainly attempted to copy him. I have know persons capable of writing a part, who were incapable of </p.287> <p.298> performing it. Our Author himself was an instance on this inconsistency; who, though he formed the rules, could not supply the example.”

1784 davies

davies

Davies (1784, p. 80): "I have always considered the advice of Hamlet to the players as Shakespeare’s legacy of love to his fellows, the comedians. Such he called them in his life-time, and such he termed some of them in his will. Wilks, I believe, never spoke it; and I conjecture it was omitted, from the death of Betterton, till the good taste of Garrick revived it. The rules were such as became the mouth of a consummate master in his profession."

-1845 mhun1

mhun1

1849-93 Speake...readie.] Hunter (-1845, f. 245r): “This is a singular addition in the recently discovered quarto in this part of the scene which relates to the duty of the Clown. I transcribe it as a trait of the manners of the age: And Farmer’s conjecture that it should read “Christian Pagan nor Mussulman’ may be said to be conted need. It is Christian Pagan nor Turk.”

1882 elze

elze

1849 Speake the speech] Elze (ed. 1882): “viz. the speech of a dozen or sixteen lines which Hamlet professes to have inserted in the pretended old play of the Murder of Gonzago.”

1885 macd

macd

1849-50 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “I should suggest this exhortation to the Players introduced with the express purpose of showing how absolutely sane Hamlet was, could I believe that Shakespere saw the least danger of Hamlet’s pretence being mistaken for reality.”

1849--1 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “He would have neither blundering nor emphasis such as might rouse too soon the king’s suspicion, or turn it into certainty.”

1934a cam3

cam3

1849-50 Wilson (ed. 1934): “Clearly intended to refer to the lines Ham. himself has written. It is a passionate speech, and Ham. is anxious that it shall produce its full effect.”

1980 Frye, Northrup

Frye

1849- 93 Speake . . . vses it] Frye (1980, pp. 83-4): <p. 83> Hamlet’s “address to the players is often read as encapsulating Shakespeare’s own view of how his plays should be acted. But Hamlet’s view of classical restraint in acting, his preference for plays that are caviar to the general [1481-2], and the like, are views which are primarily appropriate to a university-trained highbrow.</p. 83> <p. 84> It’s obvious as he goes on that Hamlet could never conceive of the possibility of such a play as King Lear, He’s not much of a poet, he tells Ophelia [1148], but when he’s instructing the actors how to speak ’my lines,’ we hear the voice of the amateur, concerned primarily that no one misses a syllable of his precious speech. We can’t check up on his abilities here, because we never get the speech, at least to recognize it: presumably it came after the play broke up.” </p. 84>

1982 ard2

ard2

1849-82 Jenkins (ed. 1982): "The excursus on acting no doubt betrays Shakespeare’s own concern , but granted that Hamlet’s views, as generally supposed, reflect those of his creator, they are also very much in character for a prince, whose standards can afford to be uncompromising. cf. II. ii. 431-7. The standards are in any case those sanctioned by the critical tradition. (See Joseph, Elizabethan Acting, pp. 146-9.) The principle of ease and naturalness of gesture corresponds with what is advocated in Heywood’s Apology for Actors, 1612 (C4): ’This is the action behooveful in any that profess this quality, not to use any imprudent or forced motion in any part of the body, no rough, or other violent gesture, nor on the contrary, to stand like a stiff starched man, but to qualify everything according to the nature of the person personated: for in overacting tricks, and toiling too much in the antic habit of humours, men of the ripest desert, greatest opinions, and best reputations, may break into the most violent absurdities.’ The ’amiable fiction’ that Shakespeare is through Hamlet attacking the acting of Edward Alleyn is well refuted by Wm. Armstrong (SS 7, 82-9). Battenhouse’s view that ’Shakespeare’s play . . . implies a criticism of ’ Hamlet’s principles and through them of the neoclassical dramatic style of Jonson (Essays for Leicester Bradner, pp. 3-26) is equally illusory."

1993 lupton&reinhard

lupton & reinhard

1849-93 Lupton & Reinhard (1993, p. 117): <p. 117>“Hamlet’s advice to the Players positions itself ambivalently in relation to Senecan conventions: the scene’s Horatian precepts of moderation and decorum describe neither the rhetoricity of the Player’s speech, nor Hamlet’s own erratic, improvisational wit. Seneca’s dramas were increasingly associated with recitative bombast, overstepping the modesty of nature, yet remained for the Renaissance the most authoritative body of classical tragedy. This ambiguity is played out in the contrasting subject matter of Hamlet’s two Senecan set pieces: the epic classicism of Pyrrhus and Hecuba, versus the Italianate modernizing of revenge in The Murder of Gonzago.” </p. 117>