Hamlet (Vol. 35) | James L. Calderwood (essay date 1978)
James L. Calderwood (essay date 1978)
SOURCE: "Hamlet: The Name of Action," in Modem Language Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 4, December, 1978, pp. 331-62.
[In the following essay, Calderwood examines structure and the language of naming in Hamlet in order to arrive at an assessment of Hamlet's character—forged throughout the play as a conjoinment of the concrete and the universal.]
Off the coast of Wales to the northwest of Caernarvonshire is the island of Anglesey, which the Romans (and Milton in "Lycidas") called Mona, and on the landward side of this island is a town with the name of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwillllandtysiliogogogoch. As one would expect, it means "The church of St. Mary on the pool of the white hazel by the raging whirlpool near the church of St. Tysilio of the Red Cave." One wonders why the local folk, who delight in baffling visitors with the pronunciation, should have burdened themselves originally...
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