Time in the Play of Hamlet

Transcriber's Notes:
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INCORPORATED APRIL 20, 1885.
To promote the knowledge and study of the Works of Wm. Shakespeare, and the Shakespearean and Elizabethan Drama.
IN EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, JUNE 15, 1885.
Resolved , That in order that the papers printed under authority of this Society may be of the highest character, and of value from all standpoints, the Society does not stand pledged as responsible for the opinions expressed or conclusions arrived at in the said papers, but considers itself only responsible in so far as it certifies by its Imprimatur that it considers them as original contributions to Shakespearean study, and as showing upon their face care, labor and research.
Papers of N. Y. Shakespeare Society, No. 5.
BY EDWARD P. VINING.
Read before the Society December 3d, 1885.
Press of the New York Shakespeare Society. 1886.
If it were not for the fact that we find conflicting opinions as to the force and meaning of some one or more words or phrases in almost every scene of Shakespeare's dramas, and that—as to “Hamlet” in particular—nearly every critic differs in many vital points from all others of his army of co-laborers, it might be a matter of some surprise to see the great divergence of opinion as to the length of time covered by the action of this tragedy.
On the one side it has been seriously contended that its entire action transpired within a period of not more than ten days; while on the other it has been thought to extend over at least ten years. Nay, more, there have been those who, in eloquent phrase, have urged the view that Shakespeare's method of dealing with the dramatic element of time is to artfully convey two opposite ideas of its flight—swiftness and slowness—so that by one series of allusions we receive the impression that the action of the drama is driving on in hot haste, and that all the events are compressed within a period of but a few days; while by another series we are insensibly beguiled into the belief that they extend over months or years. “So,” say they, “whenever time comes in as an element, we are subject to Shakespeare's glamour and gramarye—to his legerdemain. We are held in a confusion and delusion about the time.”