Hamlet is a short, unsubtle and unpoetic drama with pretty ropey grammar. That description may not accord with the recollections of modern theatregoers but it’s the form in which the play was first published, in 1603. This early version will be staged in London in April to coincide with the quatercentenary of William Shakespeare’s death. There will also be a British Library exhibition about this so-called bad quarto of the play.
This edition of Hamlet was discovered in a country house in the 19th century. It provides an insight into how Shakespeare’s contemporaries understood his work. It reads a little as if it has been translated into German and then back into English by an online translation programme. The characters include Ofelia, Gertred and Gilderstone.
Some scholars have argued that this version may be the one that Elizabethan and Jacobean theatregoers saw. The more persuasive theory remains that the manuscript is not Shakespeare’s creation but a faulty transcription from memory by an actor. Perhaps Shakespeare, concerned about his reputation in an age without copyright laws, was dismayed. This would be consistent with the fact that a longer and more philosophical version of the play was published within a year of the bad quarto.
The origins of the early version will almost certainly never be known but we can confirm from it one fact about Shakespeare. Writing for the stage was a profession without honour. The author was secondary to the theatre company, which could do what it liked with the text. The first plays of Shakespeare to be printed omitted his name. The greatest writer in the history of the language, to the continuing consternation of snobs and conspiracy theorists, was just a jobbing actor, writing on the side and relying on takings from the theatre gate.