On Paths Unknown discussion

Greetings, fellow actors! (...for all the world 's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.)

In the case of our famous play that we have decided to discuss, there's such a glut of commentary out there, that I scarce know where to begin, my fellow travelers in literature.

How to introduce one of the famous characters in literary history, who appears in one of the most famous plays in literary history, written by one of the most famous playwrights in literary history? I honestly doth not know... That it should come to this! What to say, or not to say: that is the question. On the one hand, brevity is the soul of wit.

On the other, this above all: to thine own self be true. In my mind's eye, there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.... so, though this be madness, yet there is method in 't!

You people must help me out with the planning for this discussion, please. There's just too much around Shakespeare and Hamlet for one person to decide what a group should discuss.

Some people are interested in Shakespeare as an historical person, and some in the debacle around his authorship and in his literary persona. I think for that, we should perhaps set up at least one separate thread, but I don't know if anybody around here would be interested in discussing that?

I'll edit this post soon with a link to such a thread.

Then, Hamlet. Let me come clean from the start. Hamlet as a literary construct and as a psychological literary construct; and as a character in all possible aspects of 'character' fascinates me, as well as that he repels me on a personal level.

I discovered the latter on my last reading. Initially I had thought the character Hamlet was noble and tortured, but lately I have started to think of him as... - well ... I'd love to discuss that with any of you who are interested, with closer reference to the play, which I will get into as soon as anybody clocks in with some interest in discussing any aspect of Hamlet - the play, the person - whatever tickles your fancy, come and say so here! :)

Right, since nobody has stated any preferences, how much do you guys know about the "Ur-Hamlet"?

"The Ur-Hamlet (the German prefix Ur- means "primordial") is the name given to a play by an unknown author mentioned as early as 1589, a decade before most scholars believe Shakespeare composed Hamlet, but also involving the character of Hamlet. Several surviving references indicate that such a play was well known throughout the decade of the 1590s, some time before the first published texts of Shakespeare's play (1603, 1604). "
More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur-Hamlet

Let me quote Harold Bloom on the subject:

... an earlier, missing play, the so-called Ur-Hamlet. Most scholars, on inadequate grounds, ascribe that lost drama to Thomas Kyd, author of The Spanih Traged y. I continue to follow the late Peter Alexander in believing that Shakespeare wrote both Hamlets, so that he is revising himself in the great play of 16oo.

I can well understand it becoming an obsession with him; I've come across many people who obsess over the authorship of Shakespeare's plays; and here there are actually two trains of controversy; one dealing with how much Shakespeare's plays were fiddled with by other authors - and which of the extant copies are still "pure" and/or only updated by Shakespeare himself; and the other, dealing with the very identity of our bard himself.

Here are some articles dealing with the identity of the bard : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakesp...
and
http://content.time.com/time/arts/art...
and https://doubtaboutwill.org/declaration

Quite the conspiracy theory!

Oh, and to add to the conspiratorial flavor of this post: Shakespeare had a son called Hamnet who died at a young age (I think around 13), and there are those who claim that much of Hamlet was based on Hamnet. (view spoiler)[ ...or perhaps Shakespeare just liked Ham-my names? (hide spoiler)]

Sorry, the spoiler was a really ham-handed attempt at levity on my part. :P

Traveller wrote: "I can well understand it becoming an obsession with him; I've come across many people who obsess over the authorship of Shakespeare's plays"
I think you mean Bacon's plays, nudge-nudge. ;)

Heh :-)

The authorship thing always strikes me as strange. I don't care if Billy-Bob Smith wrote Hamlet. It's still Hamlet!

It's a five act play; should we do one thread per act?

The authorship thing always strikes me as strange. I don't care if Billy-Bob Smith wrote Hamlet. It's still Hamlet!

I agree. I think it matters mostly to historians writing papers.

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "Heh :-)

The authorship thing always strikes me as strange. I don't care if Billy-Bob Smith wrote Hamlet. It's still Hamlet!

It's a five act play; should we do one thread per act?"

Sylwia wrote: "The authorship thing always strikes me as strange. I don't care if Billy-Bob Smith wrote Hamlet. It's still Hamlet!

I agree. I think it matters mostly to historians writing papers."

Well... normally, I would totally agree. ..but the next question is, when you say we are going to do a discussion of "Hamlet", I need to ask you, "which Hamlet"? ..and by that, I mean : "which text of the play called Hamlet" , because there are several.

I'll quote from the Oxford companion to Shakespeare: (view spoiler)[
The discrepancies between the three substantially
different texts of the play have vexed its editors ever since the
publishers of the 'good' quarto of 1604-5, indignantly dis-
tinguishing their version from the apparently illicit 'bad'
quarto printed the previous year, declared it to be 'newly
imprinted and enlarged to almost as much again as it was,
according to the true and perfect copy'. It seems likeliest that
Shakespeare wrote Hamlet in about 1600 (producing the
version printed as the 'good' quarto), but had revised it by
1602 to produce the acted version which was printed in the
Folio and which also lies behind the first, 'bad' quarto of 1603
(a *reported text, very probably assembled by the hired actor
who played Marcellus, Valtemand, and Lucianus, whose
scenes are more fully and accurately rendered than the rest of
the play). There is no complete assent on the relations be-
tween the three texts, however: some editors have favoured
the 'good' quarto, insisting that the Folio text, though in
places puzzlingly superior, mainly reflects unauthorized cuts
by actors, while others, including those of the Oxford edition,
see the Folio as Shakespeare's own mature revision of his earlier draft. The 'bad' quarto, further disputed over by edi-
tors, is also valuable despite its obvious errors and inconsist-
encies (and eminently actable, as sporadic modern revivals
have demonstrated): its vivid stage directions may supply
genuine details of the play's early performances omitted by
the other printed versions, and its variations in character
names—Polonius, for example, is here called Corambis, and
Reynaldo is Montano—may result from an accidental con-
flation with the lost ur-Hamlet, in which the reporter had
perhaps also acted. " (hide spoiler)] I put that into spoiler tags, not because its a spoiler, but because it long and I want to save space. :)
In any case, it should be enough to give you an idea of what I mean.

It's a five act play; should we do one thread per act?
"
Indeed, that sounds good! Shall we make this the background thread for all things Hamlety and Shakespearean, and start with the text itself in a new thread, because I can guarantee you that if some of the Hamlet/Shakespeare buffs I know start posting here, that there are books-ful to post "around" Hamlet the text.

For the record, the primary tree-book (as opposed to e-book) that I am using for this discussion, is this one: http://www.amazon.com/Hamlet-Case-Stu... (from the Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism series), and they use the full Riverside Shakespeare's version - with text by G. Blakemore Evans.

My book's text is a bit closer to the original than the popular renditions out there - I have found a few online examples:
http://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/ful...
and
http://www.folgerdigitaltexts.org/htm...
and
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/pla...

I was wondering if you guys would want us to basically follow the same text, or shall we make do with what we each have?

The first striking difference I found in my text from the modern renditions, is line 7.

My rendition says: 'Tis now strook twelf. where the modern rendition goes: 'Tis now struck twelve . However, these are just minor cosmetic differences, and I would rather use a modern text, which I assume most of you will be doing.

Okay, so you guys want to deal directly with the text itself - good! Let's see how it goes. I'll link you to the first thread shortly!
I am ecstatic to see y'all showing up, btw! Very, very welcome!!

Thanks for that pointer on the text, Traveller. I am using the Arden Third series critical edition (Hamlet) which uses the second quarto text, but also has an appendix of lines that are only in the Folio for reference. The also have a second volume (Hamlet: The Texts of 1603 and 1623) which contains the complete annotated text of both the first quarto (the 'bad' one, 1603) and the Folio (1623). I haven't decided whether to get that or not; I am kind of curious about the Folio text since it may well represent Shakespeare's finished thinking on his own play. (Or not.) I think making due with what we have is fine; we can discuss any major differences as they arise.

(These discussions are interesting always with Shakespeare because the full text of the play is almost never staged; it's too long. I did watch the 'full' Branagh version in college, and I'm not sure I'll ever get it watched again, even though I thoroughly enjoyed it. The run time on the DVD says it's only four hours, but I seem to recall it being longer? Maybe because we actually did break for intermission.)

I think making this a background thread is a great idea as well.

Good, good, Amy. I am busy trying to compile the first post as we speak. I am kind of just trying to put -something- down to anchor us a bit into getting started somewhere - from that point on, we can run with how things pan out and play it by ear.

Cool.

Going with background, here is a list from the Guardian of the greatest Hamlets (actors) ever: http://www.theguardian.com/culture/20...

Out of curiosity, does anyone have a favorite movie or audio version? I have seen the Branagh as mentioned, and of course the Mel Gibson version (I know, I know, but my best friend and I went through a serious Gibson phase in high school). I am trying the audio with Simon Russell Beale (Hamlet, available from Audible) based on his inclusion in the above list.

I had myself been planning to watch all the movies, but as you mentioned, this is an arduous task, and I fizzled out quite soon. I had, among others, acquired a black and white one - made by somebody pretty well known but I just can't place it right now....

Anyway, I've started it off, so take it away, Amy and company! The first thread is here : https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Here's a nice overview of movie versions:

http://petergalenmassey.com/2012/06/2...

Traveller wrote: "Anyway, I've started it off, so take it away, Amy and company!"

Thanks, Traveller. Will do as soon as I get the text in front of me.

I have the version that was available at the library (I'm in Southern California for the next few weeks -- there's a library within walking distance!) whatever version that is. Its line 7 is the same as Travellers except there is an -e at the end of twelfe. I liked it because it has the text on the right and explanations on the left.