Page 399 - Hamlet: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

2Q3 C O R R E C T I O N S A N D

p. xxxlx Cf. 'Notes on a feature of Shakespeare's
style' in Suggestions, by E. E. Kellett, 1923 (an im-
portant pioneer article); Caroline Spurgeon, Shake'
sfeare's Imagery\ 1935, and Wolfgang Clemen, Shake-
speares Bilder, ihre Entwicklung und ihre Funktionen
im dramatischen Werk (Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1935).
p. xlii (1. 5 from foot) The following, from Dekker's
Gull's Hornbook (1609), ch. vi, may be added to the
passages quoted:
To conclude, hoard vp the finest play-scraps you caii get,
vpon which your leane wit may most sauourly feede, for
want of other stuffe, when the Arcadian and Euphuixd
gentlewomen haue their tongues sharpened to set vpon you.
p. xliv My What happens in Hamlet (Cambridge,
1935) deals more fully with, the problems raised in
§§ V and VI.
p. Ivi (1. 13) For further discussion of this question
v. corr. T.L.S. Jan. 4,11,18, 25, Sept. 26, Oct. 3, 10,
17, 1936.
p. lviii (1. 22) v. the add. note on 2. 2.184 below.
Adams (p. 255), commenting on the Nunnery Scene,
writes:
Hamlet thinks that Claudius and Polonius, in their effort
to discover whether he really is mad or not, are employing a
familiar old medico-legal test of insanity. This test was to
place some woman, whom the suspected person was known
formerly to have loved, alone with him to offer him lewd
temptations. If the supposed madman yielded to her
temptations he was, it was believed, merely feigning insanity,
for an insane person was thought to be incapable of the
passion of love.
And he quotes from the Historie of Hambh'tt in support
of this. The suggestion is very interesting and if the
notion was commonly entertained by Sh.'s audience it
wouldstill further help to explain Ham.'s conduct to Oph.
(1. 5 from foot) It is important that the entry should
be from some central point of the modern stage, corre-