The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.2135  Friday, 3 December 1999.

From:           John Velz <
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Date:           Friday, 03 Dec 1999 02:43:33 -0600
Subject:        The Most Unkindest Cut

A Smock Alley promptbook of Hamlet  from the late seventeenth century
was made from a copy of one of the folios.  In it all of the soliloquies
are marked for cutting.  The notion of Hamlet as a melancholy Dane with
philosophical dimensions clearly was not in the minds of Dubliners in
the late seventeenth century.  I used to regale my students with this
odd bit of trivia when I taught the play to keep them from getting
excessive over the soliloquies.

John Velz