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Series Three:
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 EDWARDNILES 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
The identity of the "Anonymous" of Some Remarks on Hamlet Prince ofDenmark has never been established. The tradition that Hanmer wrote theessay had its highly dubious origin in a single unsupported statement bySir Henry Bunbury, made over one hundred years after the work waswritten, in his Correspondence of Sir Thomas Hanmer, with a Memoir ofHis Life (London, 1838), to the effect that he had reason to believethat Hanmer was the author. The evidence against this bare surmise issuch, however, as to compel assent to Professor Lounsbury's judgmentthat Hanmer's authorship "is so improbable that it may be calledimpossible" (Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist, 60). I have elsewhereset down reasons for my own belief that Hanmer could have had nothing todo with the composition of the essay, arguing on grounds of ideas,attitudes, style, and other internal evidence ("Thomas Hanmer and theAnonymous Essay on Hamlet," _MLN_61 [1934], 493-498). Without goingover the case again, I wish here merely to reaffirm my conviction thatHanmer was not the author, and to say that it would seem that thedifference in styles and the attitude of Anonymous toward Pope andTheobald are alone convincing proof that Hanmer had no part in theRemarks. Hanmer's style is stiff, formal, pedantic; the style of theessay is free, easy, direct, more in the Addison manner. Hanmer was adisciple of Pope's, and in his Preface to his Shakespeare and in hisedition as a whole shows allegiance to Pope. Anonymous, on the contrary,decisively, though urbanely, rejects Pope's edition in favor ofTheobald's text and notes. The fact that Theobald was at that time stillthe king of dunces in the Dunciad, adds to the improbability that anadmirer of Pope's, as Hanmer certainly was, would pay Theobald suchhonor.
Most careful scholars of our day go no further on the question ofauthorship than to note that the essay has been "attributed" to Hanmer;some, like Professor Stoll, seem to have dropped the idea that Hanmerwas 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 anall-out, incautio