The First Hamlet and Its Many Secrets

Journal title PARADIGMI
Author/s Alessandro Serpieri
Publishing Year 2015 Issue 2015/1
Language Italian Pages 17 P. 37-53 File size 79 KB
DOI 10.3280/PARA2015-001004
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The case of Hamlet is very strange indeed, given that it is the only Shakespearean play of which we have three different versions. Till 1823 only two were known, the Quarto edition of 1604-5 and the rather different Folio version of 1623. But in that year another copy was discovered by Sir Henry Bunbury in his house, and it was dated 1603 as announced on the title page, which means one or two years before the great play till then known. The text was largely different from the two preceding versions, and much shorter, since it counts 2200 lines in comparison with the Quarto’s 3800 and the Folio’s 3600. The author of this essay argues that it seems to be one of the early plays of the young Shakespeare.

Keywords: Discovery, First, Hamlet, Shakespeare, Text, Young.

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  4. Shakespeare W. (2006b). Hamlet: The Texts of 1603 and 1623, eds. Thompson A. and Taylor N. London: The Arden Shakespeare, Bloomsbury Publishing

Alessandro Serpieri, Il primo Amleto e i suoi molti segreti in "PARADIGMI" 1/2015, pp 37-53, DOI: 10.3280/PARA2015-001004