notes on sylvia plath’s copy of hamlet from her undergrad years

roofbeams:

-wrote intellectual next to “horatio says ’‘tis but our fantasy”
-wrote architectural balance next to claudius’ first speech
-“how is it that the clouds still hang on you”: wrote ambiguous over “clouds”
-underlined “unmanly grief”
-underlined “you speak like a green girl / unsifted in such perilous circumstance”
-underlined everything from “so often it chances in particular men…from that particular fault” and wrote tragic flaw
-underlined ophelia’s entire “my lord as I was sewing in my closet” speech
-wrote growth of madness next to “fell into a sadness”; old age & decay next to “old men have grey beards”; and death-wish next to “except my life”
-wrote world a prison next to “denmark’s a prison”
-wrote depressive above what a piece of work is man speech
-underlined polonius’ “ecstasy of love” and “still on my daughter”
-wrote decay next to “fatted all the region kites with this slaves offal”
-wrote uncertain of nature of the ghost next to “my weakness and my melancholy”
-underlined all of to be or not to be
-next to “why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners” she wrote all is corruption
-next to “marry this is miching mallecho it means mischief” she wrote furious
-she underlined “I’ll take the ghosts word for a thousand pound” and wrote wretched like spies, popinjays
-she underlines every instance of the word “revenge”
-underlined “mother mother mother”
-wrote stichomythia on “now mother what’s the matter”
-ophelia’s mad scene: she underlined “lord we know what we are but know not what we may be,” “quoth she” song, “come my coach…good night,” rosemary, pansies, violets, wrote references to her father next to “and will he not come again”
-underlined everything from “there is a willow” through “our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them”
-seems generally to underline lines abt corpses and decay
-underlined “there is no ancient gentleman but gardeners, ditchers and gravemakers; they hold up adam’s profession” and above it she wrote “when adam delved and eve span / who was then the gentleman?”
-underlined and starred “absent thee from felicity a while and in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain to tell my story”