‘To be or not to be’: a hit or a miss for Shakespeare’s early readers? (1603‒1800)

Abstract

This essay focuses on the early reception of Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ speech. Its first section looks at the print configuration of the play’s original editions. The article then moves on to examine the passage’s early reception by its readers until the Restoration. It also offers a succinct exploration of the critical debates around Hamlet’s now famous speech in a third section. The last two sections continue to survey readers’ reactions and appropriations of the speech, this time from a later era (c. 1700 to 1800). The article’s findings are that even the most appreciative and learned readers never openly embraced the speech fully. However, on early stages, the speech acquired an aura: theatre managers, or directors sought through it to stir genuine emotions in their audiences – sentiments that readers could probably not wrestle with when engaged in the private study of the passage.