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Background on Hamlet

Background on Hamlet. The Globe Theatre. Size and Shape Opened in 1599; Shakespeare's company regularly performed there. Polygonal shape with as many as 20 sides. The Globe Theatre. The "hell" at the bottom was a space for devils and others to emerge.

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Background on Hamlet

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  1. Background on Hamlet

  2. The Globe Theatre Size and Shape • Opened in 1599; Shakespeare's company regularly performed there. • Polygonal shape with as many as 20 sides.

  3. The Globe Theatre • The "hell" at the bottom was a space for devils and others to emerge. • Roof or covering was called "the heavens."

  4. The Globe Theatre • Yard of the Globe was 80' in diameter; held 800 spectators. • "Groundlings" in front of the stage were rowdy.

  5. The Globe Theatre Platform for the thrust stage was 40' wide. The theatre probably held 1500 people in the galleries, making 2300 in all.

  6. Performances • The players were all men; the women's parts were played by boys. • --Shakespeare in Love • Specific parts were written for specific actors.

  7. Book Sizes • 1. Folio: Sheet folded in half to make 4 sides • 2. Quarto: Sheet folded twice so as to make 4 leaves or 8 pages, (9 1/2" x 12") • 3. Octavo: Sheet folded so as to make 8 leaves or 16 pages (6 x 9" ) • 4. Duodecimo: Sheet folded so as to make 12 leaves or 24 pages (about 5 x 7")

  8. Early Editions of Hamlet First Quarto (1603) • For Hamlet, the First Quarto presents a "bad" or memorially reconstructed text. • Some scholars believe that these came from minor players remembering and dictating the play, although others have discredited this theory. In Hamlet, they believe that the actor playing Marcellus does this.

  9. Early Editions of Hamlet • The First Quarto text of Hamlet presents a much more sympathetic vision of Gertrude; she swears to assist Hamlet in his revenge, for example. • A scene between Gertrude and Horatio exists in this version and disappears in later ones. Gertrude is told the news that Hamlet tells in his letter to Horatio, thus establishing her as Hamlet’s ally.

  10. Early Editions of Hamlet Second Quarto (1604). • J. D. Wilson showed in 1934 that this quarto was prepared from Shakespeare’s original manuscript or possibly from a corrected edition of the First Quarto. • The Second Quarto has about 200 lines not in the Folio.

  11. Early Editions of Hamlet First Folio (1623) • Contains 18 plays previously printed in quarto editions and 18 others that would not otherwise have survived.

  12. Early Editions of Hamlet • The Folio edition has stage directions. • The Folio edition includes about 90 lines not in the Second quarto.

  13. “To be or not to be” in the Folio To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep— No more, and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to . . .

  14. “To be or not to be” in the Quarto To be or not to be, ay there’s the point; To die, to sleep, is that all? Ay, all. No, to sleep, to dream; ay marry, there it goes. For in that dream of death, when we awake And borne before an everlasting judge, From whence no passenger ever returned, The undiscovered country, at whose sight The happy smile, and the accursed damned . .

  15. Sources • Thomas Kyd's Hamlet in the 1580s (now lost); this is referred to as the “Ur-Hamlet.” • Thomas Kyd's Spanish Tragedy (1587) (Revenge tragedy)

  16. Sources • Saxo Grammaticus's Historica Danica written in second half of twelfth century

  17. Sources • Shakespeare also may have used volume 5 (1570) of Histoires tragiques, a free translation of Saxo by François de Belleforest. • The Hystorie of Hamblet, an English version of Belleforest's work, was published in London in 1608, after Shakespeare’s Hamlet had been performed.

  18. Sources • Hamlet is from Amleth in Belleforest; it's a word that means fool or one who feigns madness in Danish.

  19. Sources • In the original, Amleth feigns madness to keep away from his murderous uncle.

  20. Sources • The ghost in the original play by Belleforest said "Hamlet! Revenge!" frequently, which must have been a joke by the time of the Hamlet.

  21. Sources • From Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human • Bloom believes that Shakespeare himself wrote the ur-Hamlet play from 1589 and that he made several changes in this version.

  22. Sources • The Ghost (which Shakespeare probably played) is less prominent in the version of Hamlet that we know.

  23. Hamlet Sites • The Enfolded Hamlet • Hamlet on the Ramparts • Shakespeare Quartos Online • The Authorship Debate

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