Shakespeare and the Imprints of Performance pp 79-116 | Cite as
Performance and the Editorial Tradition
Abstract
In any other passage, in any other play, the changes might go unnoticed, but in what has become the most famous speech in Shakespeare’s most famous work, the alterations, though subtle, are impossible to miss. The quotation remains instantly recognizable as the conclusion of Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” speech; the “native hue” of Resolution so familiar to modern eyes and ears, however, has become “the healthful face,” and this face is no longer “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought” but rather “Shews sick and pale with Thought.” The modifications, which are printed in a 1676 quarto of the play, were made by William Davenant, Restoration theater manager of the Duke’s Men, one of two companies supported by royal proclamation when the public theaters reopened in 1660. The title page to The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark declares the text representative of the play “As it is now Acted at his Highness the Duke of York’s Theatre,” and the Players’ Quarto, as it is frequently called, is understood to be a fairly accurate reflection of Hamlet as it was performed in the latter half of the seventeenth century.
Keywords
Theatrical Interpolation Critical Edition Documentary Record Subsequent Edition Stage DirectionPreview
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Notes
- 1.For a more detailed list of the cuts, see Anthony Dawson, Hamlet, Shakespeare in Performance (Manchester and New York: Manchester UP, 1995), 23–4;Google Scholar
- Lukas Erne, Shakespeare as Literary Dramatist (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003), 167;Google Scholar
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