Hamlet (dating)

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This article summarizes all the major research on the question of the dating of Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet . When asked what the exact dating of a play is, Shakespeare researchers give different information. The editors of the Arden edition of The Two Noble Kinsmen (Lois Potter) and Henry VI Part 1 (Edward Burns) state that they mean the date of the first performance. Honigmann prefers to accept the drafting time, i.e. the time at which the writing of a work is completed. Harold Jenkins explained in the introduction to his Arden edition of Hamlet that the date of creation included the writing and the performance ("written and produced"). In the introduction to the current Arden edition of Hamlet, authors Thompson and Taylor argue that there must be at least three relevant dates for any Shakespearean drama: writing, performance, and printing. The existence of different editions makes it practically impossible to give an exact date.

Immediate forerunner of Shakespeare's Hamlet

The question of whether, and if so, which immediate precursors of Shakespeare's Hamlet existed in the years before 1600, is controversial in the professional world. There is only consensus about the available indications, not about the evaluation of these indications. The evidence for the existence of a forerunner of Hamlet's poetry includes utterances and works by Shakespeare's contemporaries such as Thomas Nashe, Philip Henslowe, Thomas Lodge and Robert Parry.

Thomas Kyd: The Spanish Tragedy

The English poet Thomas Nashe was believed to be the co-author of Shakespeare's drama Henry VI. and Ben Jonson's The Isle of Dogs . He may have worked with Marlowe on his play Dido, Queen of Carthage . In 1589 he wrote the foreword to Robert Greene’s play "Menaphon".

In it he says:

“… Yet English Seneca read by candlelight yields many good sentences, as Blood
is a beggar, and so forth, and if you entreat him fair in a frosty morning, he will
afford you whole Hamlets, I should say handfuls, of tragical speeches… ”.
“... an English Seneca, read by candlelight, delivers many good phrases, such as
Blood is a beggar and so on, and if you bravely beg him on a frosty morning,
he donates whole Hamlets to you or at least a few tragic speeches. "

This remark by Nashe was first referred to by Edmond Malone . and linked with the idea that this was an indication of a Hamlet performance in those years.

Philip Henslowe was a well-known impresario and theater director of the Elizabethan era. In his diaries he made detailed notes about numerous performances. In 1594 he reports a play entitled "Hamlet" was performed in the Newington Butts theater . The Newington Butts Theater is considered one of the oldest in England. What is important in this context is the fact that Henslowe, like Nashe, does not name an author.

The poet Thomas Lodge reports something similar . According to him, a play was performed at The Theater in Shoreditch in 1596 in which "a ghost cried so miserably at the Theater, like an oysterwife, Hamlet revenge." This hint is significant in that it is known that the Lord Chamberlain's Men gave performances at the "Theater" until the end of 1596 under the direction of Shakespeare. However, Lodge has given neither the author nor the title of the piece, which limits the value of its information. Nashe mentions Thomas Kyd several times in a commentary on this piece. This hint is one of the reasons for the assumption that Kyd wrote the so-called "Ur-Hamlet". Other reasons are of course the well-known similarities between Hamlet and Kyd's Die Spanische Tragödie , the later additions to the expanded fourth version, first published in 1602, according to various researchers, in part by Shakespeare himself between 1596 and 1598.

In a study of the courtly novel "Moderatus" by the Welsh poet Robert Parry , the American literary scholar G. Blakemore Evans pointed to the fact that it contained a motif peculiar to Hamlet, namely the opening, forging and resealing of a royal letter. Evans interprets this as evidence for the existence of the so-called original Hamlet. He follows numerous Shakespeare researchers who have also examined this thesis.

"The punished fratricide"

On June 24, 1624, a troupe of English actors performed a play at a theater in Dresden with the title: "Tragoedia von Hamlet a Printzen in Dennemarck." This play is probably "The punished fratricide or Prince Hamlet from Dännemarck" . The prose text was finally published in 1781 after an initially lost manuscript from October 1710. The piece is a compressed version of Hamlet. Contemporary authors such as Jenkins are convinced that it is not possible to decide which traditional Hamlet version of this prose text is closest, but scholars in the 19th century were of the opinion that "Fratricide Punished", as the play is called in English, was his model in “Ur-Hamlet”.

Style analysis and the question of dating

The text analyzes by Wells and Taylor are regarded in the professional world as a benchmark for Shakespeare research. They are of the opinion that the Hamlet versions from 1604–05 could not have been made before 1590 from a stylistic point of view. Thompson and Taylor nevertheless suspect that an early version of Shakespeare's Hamlet Lodge and Nashe were known around 1596 or possibly existed before 1589. The reason they give is that the central Hamlet motif of the spirit's desire for revenge ("Hamlet, revenge") occurs in all three versions Q1, Q2 and F1 and is also attested for the unknown piece from 1596.

External references

There are four external references that have been discussed in Shakespearean research on the question of dating and are critically appraised for their expressiveness in the new Arden edition by Thompson and Taylor.

Many scholars believe, based on external references, that Hamlet could not have existed before 1598. The reason is a list of Shakespeare's plays that Hamlet does not contain. It was created in 1598 by Francis Meres .

The existence of curious marginalia speaks for the existence of Hamlet from 1598 onwards. That year, the English scholar and writer Gabriel Harvey acquired a copy of Chaucer's works, edited by Thomas Speght . Harvey has made handwritten notes in his books mentioning Hamlet, Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser and Thomas Watson "florishing metricians," a phrase that implies that the people are active as a writer, although Watson died in 1592. He mentions recommendations of the Earl of Essex (who died in 1601) and the epigrams of John Owen , which did not appear until 1607. Some scholars use the contradicting data to calculate a date for the mention of Hamlet, others dispute any value in the marginalia for Hamlet's dating question.

More meaningful is the entry by James Roberts in the Stationers' Register of July 26, 1602. The entry reads: "A booke called the Revenge of Hamlett Prince of Denmark as yt was latelie Acted by the Lord Chamberleyne his servantes." There is neither in this note named by the author, nor does it coincide with the titles of the following Shakespeare editions.

The last relevant external reference is (presumably) from the poet Antony Scoloker . The New Zealand literary scholar Andrew Gurr has pointed out that the poem "Daiphantus" and an appendix to the poem by Scoloker contain references to Shakespeare and Hamlet. The appendix states that the poem was recently burned and contains a corresponding dedication to the readers of Hamlet. Gurr suspects that this refers to a book burning on June 1, 1599, the so-called Bishops Ban .

References inherent in the work

There are four clues in Hamlet itself that allow guesses as to when it was composed.

The mention of Julius Caesar's death allows a relative assignment of the time of writing of the two pieces, because it is assumed that Hamlet was written later than Shakespeare's Julius Caesar . The reason for this assignment is an incorrect information about the place of the murder of Caesar. In fact, according to Plutarch's report (Plutarchi vitae parallelae. Volume 2, Fasc. 2.) , Caesar was murdered at a Senate meeting in the theater of Pompey . The incorrect assignment of the location could be due to an indication in Chaucer's The Monk's Tale . The mention in Hamlet could therefore be a kind of advertisement for the performance of one's own work.

The Globe

There are a number of parallels between Hamlet and John Marston's Antonio’s Revenge . The stationer's entry for this piece is dated October 24, 1601. However, researchers draw completely different conclusions from this connection: Jenkins suspects that Marston is dependent on Shakespeare, GK Hunter suspects that both are dependent on the so-called original Hamlet, Charles Cathcart believes that Hamlet was based on an even earlier play by Marsden (Antonio and Mellida) , W. Reavly Gair believes that Shakespeare and Marston were working in competition at the same time, while Katherine Duncan-Jones believes that they both worked together. Dating information is therefore uncertain due to this information.

A passage in Q1 and F1 seems to refer to the so-called War of the Theaters , which suggests that the passage in question is related to the conflict between Ben Jonson , Thomas Dekker and John Marston and was therefore written down immediately afterwards. The same applies to the mention of the child actors, which is interpreted as a reference to the Children of the Chapel , which was re-established around 1600.

The fourth in-house reference that was used for dating relates to the mention of the symbolic figure of Hercules , who carries the world on his shoulders, which was the coat of arms of the Globe Theater and thus the writing of this comparison to the time after the founding of the Globe limited in 1599. Based on indications inherent in the work, it can be concluded that it was created between 1599 and 1601.

Dating of the early performances

There are a total of five pieces of evidence to be taken seriously, which allow clues to the dating of the early performances of Hamlet.

The earliest evidence of a performance of Hamlet dates back to September 5, 1607 and probably took place on the merchant ship "Red Dragon", which anchored off the west coast of North Africa (today's Sierra Leone) on its voyage to India. The reference comes from a publication from the mid-19th century. In the records of the captain of the "Red Dragon" William Keeling by the editor of travel literature Samuel Purchas from 1625, these references were not found, which is why various authors have called these entries falsifications. More recently, the suspicion that it might be a fake has been rejected.

The front page of Hamlet's first quarto edition says the piece was performed at the universities of Cambridge and Oxford. The validity of this information was questioned by Alan H. Nelson. He has shown that the Cambridge University Administration banned the performance of plays during this period. Nelson therefore suspects that the Q1 statement is a fake to promote sales.

Richard Burbage

Burbage was a noted contemporary theater owner and actor. He was one of the people designated by Shakespeare in his will and, according to the information in F1, was one of the main actors ("principal actors"). Individual formulations in his obituary are understood as a reference to the grave digger scene. Only Q1 contains a hint that Hamlet should jump into the grave, which supports the assumption that a Q1 version was performed.

What is noticeable is the lack of a fool in Hamlet. The Yorick scene is interpreted in such a way that Shakespeare's troupe temporarily did not have a suitable actor. The well-known actor, for example Falstaff William Kempe , presumably resigned in 1599 and died around 1603. Around 1600 the author and actor Robert Armin was hired, who embodied a new type of fool.

An increasing number of references in plays by Shakespeare's contemporaries to Hamlet in the post-1600s are viewed as a sure sign that the play was successfully performed. These are mostly parodic allusions. The Yorick scene is taken up in The Honest Whore by Dekker and Middleton , as is Middelton's The Revenger's Tragedy . In Eastward Hoe, a joint effort by George Chapman , Marston and Ben Jonson, there are allusions to the death of Ophelia and a Hamlet appears. Further references can be found in The Woman Hater and The Scornful Lady , two joint works by Fletcher and Francis Beaumont . The madness of Ophelia is echoed in Webster's The White Devil and in The Two Noble Cousins .

Text output

English

  • Harold Jenkins (Ed.): Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare. Second series. London 1982.
  • Philip Edwards (Ed.). Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. New Cambridge Shakespeare. Cambridge 1985, 2003, ISBN 978-0-521-53252-5 .
  • Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (Eds.): Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Volume 1, London 2006, ISBN 978-1-904271-33-8 .
  • Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (Eds.): Hamlet. The Texts of 1603 and 1623. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Volume 2, London 2006, ISBN 1-904271-80-4 .

English German

  • Norbert Greiner, Wolfgang G. Müller (Eds.): Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. English-German study edition. Stauffenburg Verlag, Tübingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-86057-567-3 .

literature

  • Stanley Wells, Gary Taylor: William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1987.

supporting documents

  1. Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (Eds.): Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Volume 1, London 2006. p. 44.
  2. ^ EAJ Honigmann "The Date of Hamlet" in: Shakespeare Survey 9 (1956) 24-34.
  3. ^ William Shakespeare: Hamlet. The Texts of 1603 and 1623 .. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Edited by Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor. Volume two. London 2006.
  4. Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (Eds.): Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Volume 1, London 2006. p. 44.
  5. Gary Taylor . "Shakespeare and Others: The Authorship of Henry the Sixth, Part One", Medieval and Renaissance Drama, 7 (1995), 145-205.
  6. Nashe. Vol. 3, 315
  7. Thomas Nashes foreword to Thomas Green's "Menaphon"
  8. ^ Edmund Malone: ​​The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare. Oxford 1790.
  9. ^ Reginald A. Foakes: Henslowes Diary. 2nd Edn. Cambridge 2002.
  10. ^ William Ingram, "The business of playing: the beginnings of the adult professional theater in Elizabethan London." Cornell University Press, 1992, ISBN 978-0-8014-2671-1 .
  11. Thomas Lodge. Wits Miserie and the World's Madnesse. 1596.
  12. Cf. Günter Jürgensmeier (ed.): Shakespeare and his world. Galiani, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3869-71118-8 , pp. 428 and 445 as well as the German translation of the version of Kyd's Spanish tragedy from 1602 with the later additions, ibid pp. 445-480.
  13. G. Blakemore Evans: “An Echo of the Ur-Hamlet?”. In: Notes & Queries 246 (2001) p. 266.
  14. CM Lewis: "The Genesis of Hamlet". New York 1907. pp. 64-76. Henry David Gray: "Reconstruction of a lost play". Philological Quarterly vol. 7 no.3 (1928) 254-74. Hamlet Parrott-Craig. Pp. 7-15. Fredson Bowers , "Elizabethan Revenage Tragedy 1587-1642" Princeton NJ 1940. pp. 89-93. VK Whitacker: "Shakespeare's Use of Learning." San Marino Cal. 1953. pp. 329-46. Geoffry Bullough: Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare. 8 vols. London and New York 1957-75. Vol. 7. Pg 45, 49 and 51.
  15. Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (Eds.): Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Volume 1, London 2006. p. 45.
  16. Heinrich August Ottokar Reichard Berlin 1781 Olla Potrida, pt. 2, pp. 18–68.
  17. Horace Howard Furness : "New Variorum Shakespeare". 2 Vol. Philadelphia 1877. William Bernhardy: “Shakespeare's Hamlet. A literary-historical critical attempt ”. In: Hamburg literary critical sheets. 49 1857 p. 103. Hamlet. Ed. WG Clark, J Glover, WA Wright. Cambridge Shakespeare. (1863-6) Vol. 8 1866. Albert Cohn : "Shakespeare in Germany in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century". 1865.
  18. ^ Diether Mehl: Shakespeare reference books. in: Margareta de Grazia and Stanley Wells (eds.): The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare. 2001 p. 302.
  19. ^ Wells Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor: William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion. Oxford 1987. p. 138
  20. Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (Eds.): Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Volume 1, London 2006. p. 46.
  21. Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (Eds.): Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Volume 1, London 2006. p. 47.
  22. ^ Francis Meres: Palladis Tamia: Wits Treasury.
  23. Chambers. P. 193f.
  24. ^ Virginia F. Stern: Gabriel Harvey: His Life, Marginalia and Library. Oxford 1980. pp. 127f.
  25. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Ed. Philip Edwards. New Cambridge Shakespeare. Cambridge 1985, 2003. p. 5.
  26. Arber Vol. 3, p. 212.
  27. Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (Eds.): Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Volume 1, London 2006. p. 49.
  28. Andrew Gurr: Hamlet and the auto da fe. Around the Globe 13, 2000. pp. 14f.
  29. ^ William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. English-German study edition. German prose version with comments by Norbert Greiner. Introduction and commentary by Wolfgang G. Müller. Stauffenburg Verlag, Tübingen 2008: I, 1, 113–120; III, 2, 101f and V, 1, 204f. Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (Eds.): Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Volume 1, London 2006. I, 1, 111-119; III, 2, 99f and V, 1, 202-205.
  30. ^ William Shakespeare: Hamlet. Edited by GR Hibbard. The Oxford Shakespeare. Oxford University Press 1987. Reissued as an Oxford World's Classic Paperback 2008. p. 355.
  31. Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (Eds.): Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Volume 1, London 2006. p. 51.
  32. ^ William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. English-German study edition. German prose version with comments by Norbert Greiner. Introduction and commentary by Wolfgang G. Müller. Stauffenburg Verlag, Tübingen 2008: II, 2, 323-349. Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (Eds.): Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Volume 1, London 2006 ..: Appendix I (2) 1-21.
  33. ^ William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. English-German study edition. German prose version with comments by Norbert Greiner. Introduction and commentary by Wolfgang G. Müller. Stauffenburg Verlag, Tübingen 2008: II, 2, 331–338. Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (Eds.): Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Volume 1, London 2006. Appendix I (2) 2-8.
  34. ^ William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. English-German study edition. German prose version with comments by Norbert Greiner. Introduction and commentary by Wolfgang G. Müller. Stauffenburg Verlag, Tübingen 2008: II, 2, 354. Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (eds.): Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Volume 1, London 2006. Appendix I (2) 25f.
  35. Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (Eds.): Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Volume 1, London 2006. pp. 53f.
  36. ^ "Narratives of Voyages towards the North-West 1496-1631" Editor: Thomas Rundall. The Hakluyt Society 1849 .
  37. ^ Sidney Lee: "Life of Shakespeare" 1898. Sydney Race: Letter to "Notes & Queries" 1950.
  38. Ania Loomba: "Shakespearian Transformation" in: John J Joughin (Ed.) Shakespeare and National Culture Manchester 1997 pg 109-141.
  39. Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (Eds.): Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Volume 1, London 2006. p. 56.
  40. ^ "Often I have seen him, leap into the Grave." Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (Eds.): Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Volume 1, London 2006. p. 56.
  41. ^ William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. English-German study edition. German prose version with comments by Norbert Greiner. Introduction and commentary by Wolfgang G. Müller. Stauffenburg Verlag, Tübingen 2008: V, 1, 245. Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (eds.): Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Volume 1, London 2006. V, 1, 247.
  42. Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (Eds.): Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Volume 1, London 2006. p. 428, footnote to Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (Eds.): Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Volume 1, London 2006. V, 1, 247.
  43. ^ William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. English-German study edition. German prose version with comments by Norbert Greiner. Introduction and commentary by Wolfgang G. Müller. Stauffenburg Verlag, Tübingen 2008: V, 1, 162-184. Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (Eds.): Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Volume 1, London 2006. V, 1, 163-185.
  44. Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (Eds.): Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Volume 1, London 2006. p. 57. Andrew Gurr: Playgoing. P. 151f.
  45. Ann Thompson, Neil Taylor (Eds.): Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Volume 1, London 2006. p. 57.