Fabled star query
What was the first "Hamlet without the Prince"?
Something to do with Byron, I thought.
No, the answer lies with Dr Johnson, I was told.
I would not have posed the question today if I hadn't been reading Michael Caines' dextrous comparison of two new 'dictionaries of phrase and fable' in the issue of the TLS which goes to press tonight.
The Oxford version of the dictionary (now in its second edition, edited by Elizabeth Knowles) cites an issue of the Morning Post from September 1775.
Its older rival, Brewer's (founded by Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, 1810-1897, and now edited by John Ayto), though strong on the origins of such names as Stonewall Jackson, is weaker on princeless Hamlets.
We have to turn to Nigel Rees' Phrases and Sayings (1995) to be told that Byron did indeed give the gist of the phrase, suggesting that his autobiographical essay would resemble the Tragedy of Hamlet, recited "with the part of Hamlet left out by particular desire".
The Morning Post source is apparently an anecdote about a theatrical manager who has to announce his Shakespeare performance for the night after his principal actor has run off with the inn-keeper's daughter.
No mention of Dr Johnson anywhere.
And neither Oxford nor Brewer's can agree, complains Caines, on how to file 'Something rotten in the state of Denmark'.
Under R for rotten or S for something?
Read the review in our TLS issue later this week and decide.
"Rotten" in the State of Denmark, or "rotten" in the state of Denmark? Maybe in modern times, Rotten rather than rotten - given the Sex Pistols.
In all cases, rotten is the point of emphasis, so that's where it should be indexed. Denmark is 'something' hardly relevant to the thrust - perhaps (with respect to the Danes) that might be said of Denmark now.
But rottenness bears some relevance to the current state of affairs in Britain, I hazard.
Posted by: Chuck Unsworth | 3 May 2006 19:47:01
"Hamlet without the Prince" was first used in the Morning Post in 1875? or 1775? Peter Stothard's blog item says the new, second edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable puts the phrasemaking in an 1875 Morning Post, while the first edition (which I have in hand) says it was 1775. Either is possible; the Morning Post was founded in 1772 and didn't merge into the Daily Telegraph in 1937.
Posted by: Al Magary | 4 May 2006 06:53:52
1775. . .my mistake . . and corrected now. . .it is such a wonder of blogs that, unlike every other press day error in my newspaper life, a careless date can be so easily fixed. .
Posted by: peter stothard | 4 May 2006 09:51:31
The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, also edited by Elizabeth Knowles,has this entry attributed to Sir Walter Scott:
"The play-bill, which is said to have announced the tragedy of Hamlet, the character of the Prince of Denmark being left out" The Talisman 1825. Memories 1830 vol I gives a similar anecdote from 1787.
No Dr Johnson here either . . . go figure!
Posted by: Jean Chicoine | 3 Jun 2006 14:51:44