Items
Details
Title
The Two Versions of Hamlet's “Mousetrap" [manuscript], ca.195?.
Created/published
England?, circa 1950s?
Description
11 p.
Associated name
Montgomerie, William, author.
Note
This is a PRELIMINARY RECORD. It may contain incorrect information. Please email catalog@folger.edu for assistance.
Item Details
Call number
FAST ACC 271279 (flat)
Folger-specific note
From dealer's description: "Typed essay by William Montgomerie titled 'The Two Versions of Hamlet's "Mousetrap"'. 11pp, 4to. Signed at end 'Wm. Montgomerie', and with one trifling autograph emendation. Montgomerie begins by describing what he considers the 'three parts' of 'the play-within-the-play in Hamlet'. He does not question the accepted interpretation of the first two parts - 'a dumb-show, an interlude' - but on the question of the third part - 'the short Mousetrap that catches the conscience of King Claudius' - he asserts: 'That Gonzago should be King Hamlet and be called "Duke" has puzzled the commentators. The mistake they have all made is to interpret Hamlet's explanation as referring back to what has gone before, rather than forward to what is about to happen. They have all missed the fact that what follows the entrance of Lucianus, nephew to the King, [last four words underlined] needs a new interpretation just because the second Poisoner, Lucianus, is nephew to the King, and therefore cannot be Duke Claudius the first Poisoner of the dumb-show.' He gives what he considers the 'traditional' interpretation, with an 'alternative', describing the latter as 'a producer's problem'. That comment carries the footnote: 'Some years ago, in Scotland, I persuaded a producer to stage this new interpretation. Though the production was a compromise between my interpretation and the caution of the producer, it showed that imagination can recreate a character on the stage, just as it can transform the stage from castle ramparts to the King's Council Chamber. Costume is he means of the first case, stage props in the second. Shakespeare relied less on both of these.' He concludes with the claim that 'the new version outlined in this essay is much more effective as drama than what is usually imagined as the Mousetrap. A Mousetrap must snap shut, with the King's conscience caught. Hamlet had good reason for calling it a Mousetrap. There is no delayed action in a Mousetrap. Following the conclusion of the essay is a two-page 'Footnote', in which Montgomerie seeks to make clear 'the exact differences between the conventional interpretation and the one given in this essay', by listing 'the characters of the play-within-the-play in a table'. He follows this with criticism of the 'incompleteness' of John Dover Wilson's 're-interpretation', which in Montgomerie's view has 'left the play-within-the-play in a most untidy state [...] Some of this conclusion spreads outside the play-within-the-play. The new task is to modify the conventional interpretation, and to complete Professor Dover Wilson's re-interpretation. The danger of careless reading is to confuse the thesis of this essay with Professor Dover Wilson's theories. There is at times a superficial resemblance, but it goes no further than the Lucianus-Hamlet identity.' From the papers of Rev. William Andrew Wilson (1869-1918), Minister of New Row Presbyterian Church, Coleraine, and his son the poet R. N. D. Wilson [Robert Noble Denison Wilson] (1899-1953). Ordered from Richard Ford. D9301, 2019-05-14, email quote.