Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736)   By: Anonymous

Essays on the Stage

No. 3

Anonymous [attributed to Thomas Hanmer], Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736).

With an Introduction by Clarence D. Thorpe

and

a Bibliographical Note

The Augustan Reprint Society September, 1947 Price : 75c

GENERAL EDITORS RICHARD C. BOYS, University of Michigan EDWARD NILES HOOKER, University of California, Los Angeles H.T. SWEDENBERG, JR., University of California, Los Angeles

ADVISORY EDITORS EMMETT L. AVERY, State College of Washington LOUIS I. BREDVOLD, University of Michigan BENJAMIN BOYCE, University of Nebraska CLEANTH BROOKS, Louisiana State University JAMES L. CLIFFORD, Columbia University ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, University of Chicago SAMUEL H. MONK, University of Minnesota JAMES SUTHERLAND, Queen Mary College, London

Lithoprinted from copy supplied by author by Edwards Brothers, Inc. Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A. 1947

INTRODUCTION

The identity of the "Anonymous" of Some Remarks on Hamlet Prince of Denmark has never been established. The tradition that Hanmer wrote the essay had its highly dubious origin in a single unsupported statement by Sir Henry Bunbury, made over one hundred years after the work was written, in his Correspondence of Sir Thomas Hanmer, with a Memoir of His Life (London, 1838), to the effect that he had reason to believe that Hanmer was the author. The evidence against this bare surmise is such, however, as to compel assent to Professor Lounsbury's judgment that Hanmer's authorship "is so improbable that it may be called impossible" ( Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist , 60). I have elsewhere set down reasons for my own belief that Hanmer could have had nothing to do with the composition of the essay, arguing on grounds of ideas, attitudes, style, and other internal evidence ("Thomas Hanmer and the Anonymous Essay on Hamlet ," MLN 61 [1934], 493 498). Without going over the case again, I wish here merely to reaffirm my conviction that Hanmer was not the author, and to say that it would seem that the difference in styles and the attitude of Anonymous toward Pope and Theobald are alone convincing proof that Hanmer had no part in the Remarks . Hanmer's style is stiff, formal, pedantic; the style of the essay is free, easy, direct, more in the Addison manner. Hanmer was a disciple of Pope's, and in his Preface to his Shakespeare and in his edition as a whole shows allegiance to Pope. Anonymous, on the contrary, decisively, though urbanely, rejects Pope's edition in favor of Theobald's text and notes. The fact that Theobald was at that time still the king of dunces in the Dunciad , adds to the improbability that an admirer of Pope's, as Hanmer certainly was, would pay Theobald such honor.

Most careful scholars of our day go no further on the question of authorship than to note that the essay has been "attributed" to Hanmer; some, like Professor Stoll, seem to have dropped the idea that Hanmer was in any way connected with it and safely speak of "the author" or "the anonymous author"; I recall only one case in recent years of an all out, incautious assignment of the authorship to Hanmer ("Hamlet among the Mechanists," Shakespeare Association Bulletin 17 [July, 1942], 138). It would seem advisable to follow Stoll's lead and ignore Hanmer entirely.