More things in heaven and earth
In this week’s Sunday Times Magazine there’s a review by Christopher Hart of John Simm’s Hamlet at the Crucible, Sheffield. (There’s a Guardian interview with Simm, here.) He mentions a change to the normally used text, the production preferring the Folio edition which has “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in our philosophy,” rather than the more familiar “your philosophy” from the Quarto texts.
Hart, in his Times article, thinks that when Hamlet uses “our” he’s referring to the “all human intellectual attempts”, and reflecting his own, existing belief in a “darker, more uncertain, ultimately unknowable reality,” but I don’t buy that. It seems to me that Hamlet’s reflecting the fact that his existing rationalism, and that of his friend, are suddenly invalidated. The “our” extends to the two of them, but no further.
I prefer the Folio version. It seems far more in line with the commonality, and camaraderie, between Hamlet and Horatio. Both men are students, enrolled at the prestigious university of Wittenberg, whose world-view is shattered by the appearance of the ghost. They’re sharing an experience, and it seems that Hamlet would have to have a very high opinion of himself, or low opinion of his friend, to point out the limitations of Horatio’s philosophy alone.
I suppose one could consider the more judgemental version – “your philosophy” – as Hamlet’s giving primacy to his role as prince; and certainly he demands that his friends swear an oath, on his sword, never to speak of the events which have just occurred, which would echo his elevated status. But, well, I just don’t see Hamlet as that kind of guy. This is, I realize, a somewhat less than considered textual, or even inter-textual, critique.
Still, if you don’t value my opinion, there’s always David Tennant to consider, from an article in The Stage, “Wordplay’s the thing,” by Jonathan Bate: “But for Tennant, the actor-reader, ‘our philosophy’ is a choice in keeping with his take on the most inexhaustible, question-filled role in the repertoire.”
Tell the world.
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I was reading thru some of your older posts and found this one about the “our” and “your” difference in Hamlet. You make an interesting point about the inclusiveness of Hamlet in making it “our philosophy” by including himself in the same group as Horatio. This in contrast to the more traditional “your philosophy” wherein Hamlet implies his philosophy is greater than his friend Horatio’s, or, if not greater, at least wider in the more ready ability to accept conversations with ghosts.
I think, though, that these fine points may just be debating angels on a pin head since the difference may come down, not to intent or inclusion, but to mere spelling. The difference between your and our is really only the letter y. In the Quarto, published in 1603/4, the word is spelled “your”. This was published while Shakespeare was still alive and if there was a misprint of fact or substance, he would have seen it and had it corrected or at least noted. The Folios were published in 1623 or later, after Shakespeare was dead, making it very hard for him to proof them.
The most likely reason for the difference is that in the Folios the typesetter merely mistakenly left out the leading y, making your into our. Anyone proof reading the text who had not memorized Hamlet word for word would see the new text as an acceptable sentence. It’s not as if it had originally said “his philosophy” or “their philosophy” wherein leaving out the first letter would result in the words “is” or “heir”, valid words but nonsensical in context. Or even if it had been “my philosophy” which would have resulted in the non word “y”. It just seems by luck or chance the word originally was “your” and the typesetter changed it to “our” thereby creating an entirely new meaning for the sentence and centuries of debate as to whether Hamlet was an inclusive good fellow or an aristocratic elitist.
You’re quite right that this comes down to typesetting, or, perhaps more likely, the fact that the written version of the play came from an oral recitation, which would differ somewhat from performance to performance. But since there is no way to verify which version was Shakespeare’s intent, we have the luxury of deciding which to use. The debate about Hamlet’s character is wider than this phrase, and I see it less as choosing ‘your’ or ‘our’ in order to determine his nature, and more about choosing the reading which more accurately reflects the Hamlet emerging from the play in its entirety.
I agree that the “our” in the folio edition likely resulted from the typesetter dropping the “y”, but I don’t agree that “we have the luxury of deciding which to use”, as if Shakespeare’s intent was of no importance to us.
The philosophy to which Hamlet refers is almost certainly the philosophy of Aristotle, which was the standard philosophy in the Middle Ages. Aristotelianism accepts as real only what is publicly observable by the senses or can be inferred by reason (an assumption also made by the scientific materialists and physicalists of our time), and ghosts (and more generally anything which can be labelled as “spiritual”) are thus not acceptable. For Hamlet, the ghost of his father is real, not some hallucination. He is therefore not an Aristotelian, so the philosophy he is referring to is not his own, and so is not “our” philosophy — it is that of the Aristotelian Horatio and of all the other Aristotelians of Hamlet’s time. And the emphasis may well have been on “philosophy” rather than “your”: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your *philosophy*.” — suggesting that rational thought (based on empirical observation) is quite inadequate to discovering the full extent of what is real.
Well, perhaps ‘luxury’ wasn’t the right word; perhaps, ‘duty’ or somesuch? I do say that this comes down to, “choosing the reading which more accurately reflects the Hamlet emerging from the play in its entirety”, and presumably that’s a good way of reflecting Shakespeare’s intent.
Anyway, I can’t argue against what you say: in fact, I say in my original post that it’s entirely plausible. However, it isn’t an indefensible counter-argument to the other option, which is “our” being a reflection of Hamlet’s realization that his own philosophy has been shown lacking, as well as that of his friend. There doesn’t seem any particular reason to assume that Horatio held a different philosophical position from Hamlet prior to this exchange. Also, even if they both held the same philosophy initially, Hamlet’s use of “our” would still suggest “that rational thought (based on empirical observation) is quite inadequate to discovering the full extent of what is real”.
But, like I say in my post, my analysis is “a somewhat less than considered textual, or even inter-textual, critique.”
How on earth did you come across my obscure internet scribblings in the first place?