“To be or not to be, that is the question.” The best known line in all literature?
And we all know where it comes from…
But is it original?
No, says Professor John Sutherland in a recent review in Literary Review magazine. In fact, Shakespeare would have known perfectly well that his contemporary Christopher Marlowe wrote in the opening soliloquy in his Doctor Faustus, “Bid Oncaymaeon farewell.”
The Greek Oncaymaeon translates, says Professor Sutherland, as “being and not being”.
He goes on to point out that Faustus himself is a professor of philosophy at Wittenburg University. “And where is Hamlet a student of philosophy?” he asks. “The University of ….”
So Hamlet (or rather Shakespeare) is in effect not thinking but quoting.
Does it matter? Not at all.
It just goes to show that, in one way or another, everything that is new grows out of what already exists – in science and technology as in the arts.
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