Hamlet

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a tragedy by William Shakespeare and one of his most well-known and oft-quoted plays. It was written at an uncertain date between 1600 and the summer of 1602.

Texts

There are three extant texts of Hamlet from the early 1600's in both Quarto and Folio format.

Related Topics:
1600's - Quarto and Folio

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The play first appeared in print in 1603 in a version now known as the 'Bad Quarto'. This edition follows essentially the same plot as the play we know as Hamlet but it is much shorter and its language is often very different; for example, where the accepted version reads "To be or not to be, that is the question", the Bad Quarto reads "To be or not to be, aye there's the point". These differences, which usually seem aesthetically weaker than the other versions, have led to the suggestion that the text may have been published without the permission of the playing company, and put together by stenography or by minor actors recalling the lines of others by memory.

Related Topics:
1603 - Stenography

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In particular, the finger has been pointed at the character Marcellus as the likely culprit for the source of the "Bad Quarto". His scenes and lines are rendered most "accurately" (compared to other Quartos). When he is absent from stage the text diverges more. The Royal Shakespeare Company's Artistic Director Michael Boyd staged Hamlet in the Summer of 2004. He used multiple-Quartos for the lines - this was dubbed the "Boyd Quarto" by the newspaper critics.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The authorised 'Second Quarto' (Q2) was published in 1604, and was described on its title page as "enlarged to almost as much again as it was". This is the longest text of Hamlet to be published in the period.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The third edition was the version published in the First Folio of Shakespeare's complete works. This text is shorter but also contains scenes not in Q2.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Modern editions are a compromise between the Second Quarto text and the Folio text. Some conflate the two to produce one very long text. Others assume that the Folio text represents Shakespeare's final intentions and that the cuts were made by him; they therefore present the cut Q2 passages in an appendix.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In the theatre, performing the full, conflated Q2/Folio text takes around 4 hours. Because of this, most productions use a cut text. Some theatre companies have experimented with performing the Bad Quarto, which takes only 2 hours, claiming that while it reads badly on the page, in performance it can seem faster-paced and more direct than the 'official' versions.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~