September 25th, 2016 → 5:05 am @ Lea // No Comments

“I do not know yet why I live to say this thing’s to do,
sith I have cause and will and strength and means to do it.”  – Hamlet (second quarto only!)

      Note: replace “sith” with “since” and the quote will read much easier to the modern eye

I am currently sitting in on an online Shakespeare course at Future Learn (“Shakespeare: Print and Performance”). I say sitting in on because while I am fully signed up, I am only watching the videos and not doing the homework assignments (I have been taking the quizzes though and scoring very highly!!).  Anyhow, a lot of the videos are repetition for me, but every once in awhile I do learn something new.  Today I learned that the second quarto edition of Hamlet is not only different than the first folio edition (this, I knew), but it is different by hundreds of lines.  My goodness!  There really are significantly different versions of Hamlet out there.  What does that mean?  Were there multiple authors?  Multiple updates?  Versions made for different playhouses?  We’ll never truly know, but I did like the quote given above that is from the second quarto alone.  Hamlet wonders why he’s sitting around thinking so much, and not doing anything, and it reminded me not only of myself at times, but most definitely of some of my own students right now.  There’s a homework assignment due tomorrow, get on it!