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The Readings of the First Quarto of Hamlet
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Editors of Hamlet have, in general, paid but little attention to the readings of Q1; they have in a few cases adopted them, or made them the basis of emendation, but in their critical notes they have recorded comparatively few of them, and have overlooked many that are better than the generally accepted readings (from Q2 F1), even where these accepted readings are plainly wrong and the readings of Q1 as plainly right.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1923
References
1 See Hubbard, The First Quarto Edition of Shakespeare's Hamlet, Madison, 1920, p. 30.
2 New Shakespeare Society, Transactions, 1880-1886 pp. 121-145.
3 References are to The Cambridge Shakespeare, Second Edition, 1892, Vol. 7. Variations of spelling are not noted; spelling has been modernized.
4 For example, in II II 379, most modern editors adopt the reading of Q1Q2 (swaddling), but the reading of F1 is adopted by Rowe, Caldecott, Knight, Collier, Elze, Dyce, Staunton, White, Delius.
5 See pp. 797-8.
6 inobled F1.
7 This is omitted from Q1, which in this case agrees with F1 in the addition, and with Q2 in the omission.
8 In F1 this speech is given to the Queen, in Q1 to the King.
9 For example, I, IV, 42; II II 418; V II 236.
10 The First Quarto Edition of Shakespeare's Hamlet, pp. 19-36.
11 First Quarto of Hamlet, p. 6.
12 William Shakespeare, Prosody and Text, Leyden, 1900, p. 420.
13 Furness, Clarendon Press.
14 See above, p. 801.
15 See above, p. 802.
16 Cf. Hunter, Illustrations of Shakespeare II, 244.
17 See above, p. 802.
18 Shakespeare Restored, p. 90. Cf. the note in his first edition.
19 See above, p. 802.
20 For a discussion of the passage, see my First Quarto Edition, pp. 34-5. When that was written I was not acquainted with Elze's discussion.
21 William Shakespeare, Prosody and Text, pp. 419-20.
22 Cf. Q1, III, IV, 89-90. Alas' it is the weakness of the brain, Which makes thy tongue to blazon thy heart's grief.
23 but Qq.
24 sort Qq.
25 Cf. Furness's note.
26 Hora Q4 Q5, wonderfuli F2.
27 Punctuation as in Q2:
27a likely, Ff, Q6.
28 I would Qq.
29 sing Q4Q5.
30 For examples, see N. E. D. Cf. First Quarto Edition, p. 118, note to II II 284. For other examples, see Fitzedward Hall, Recent Exemplification of False Philology, p. 80.
31 ‘tis not so Q2Q8, ‘tis not Q4Q5Q6.
32 See First Quarto Edition, p. 117, note to 11 35.
33 Cf. Johnson's note, “I do not admire the repetition, but it has so much of our author's manner, that I find no temptation to recede from the old copies.”
34 Ff. have singular in 1. 130, but plural in 1. 129.
35 Note that this reading confirms that of Qq.
36 Qq. omit my.
37 Ff. omit much.
38 Ff. omit with.
39 Rowe, Pope, Hanmer.
40 true love Qq.
41 See H. De Groot, Hamlet, its Textual History, Amsterdam, 1923.