| 释义 |
Hamlet2|ˈhæmlɪt|
The name of the prince of Denmark who is the hero of Shakespeare's play of this name, in allusive phr. Hamlet without the Prince (of Denmark): a performance without the chief actor or a proceeding without the central figure.
[1775Morning Post 21 Sept., Lee Lewes diverts them with the manner of their performing Hamlet in a company that he belonged to, when the hero who was to play the principal character had absconded with an inn-keeper's daughter; and that when he came forward to give out the play, he added, ‘the part of Hamlet to be left out, for that night.’] 1818Byron Let. 26 Aug. (1830) II. 445 My autobiographical essay would resemble the tragedy of Hamlet.., recited ‘with the part of Hamlet left out by particular desire’. 1820Lady Granville Let. 22 Aug. (1894) I. 161, I am not used to be news⁓monger and perhaps I leave out Hamlet. 1825Scott Talism. (1883) 5 The title of a ‘Tale of the Crusaders’ would resemble the playbill, which is said to have announced the tragedy of Hamlet, the character of the Prince of Denmark being left out. 1859G. Meredith Ordeal R. Feverel I. vii. 109 ‘What have you been doing at home, Cousin Rady?’ ‘Playing Hamlet, in the absence of the Prince of Denmark.’ 1902Daily Chron. 22 Apr. 3/1 Of what avail is it to promise ‘entirely new scenery’ for ‘Die Meistersinger’, if the part of Hans Sachs is to be practically eliminated from the performance? And yet this ‘Hamlet-without-the-Prince’ method is consistently pursued season after season at Covent Garden. 1910Times Weekly 17 June 452 The army without Kitchener is like Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. 1918L. Strachey Emin. Victorians 86 The Catholic Church without the absolute dominion of the Pope might resemble the play of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. 1967J. Prescot Case Counterfeit viii. 96 Without Drax one can't do a thing. Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark, I guess. 1972Publishers Weekly 3 Apr. 22/3 The article..in the March 6th PW was an attempt to stage Hamlet without the Dane.
Hence ˈHamletish a.; ˈHamletism, an attitude resembling that of Hamlet; ˈHamletize v. rare, to soliloquize or meditate after the manner of Hamlet.
1844Hebbe & MacKay tr. Sealsfield's Life in New World 267 Halloo! Mr. Howard! Hamletizing? 1852H. Melville Pierre vii. vi. 191 In this plaintive fable we find embodied the Hamletism of the antique world. 1854‘G. Greenwood’ Haps & Mishaps in Europe iii. 53 Herr Devrient is a handsome, Hamlet-ish man, with a melancholy refinement of voice. 1905Daily Chron. 11 Apr. 4/7 Let us forget Hamletism and all its ills. 1920D. H. Lawrence Women in Love xiv. 205 One shouldn't talk when one is tired and wretched.—One Hamletises, and it seems a lie. 1923― Stud. Classic Amer. Lit. ix. 180 So Dana sits and Hamletizes by the Pacific—chief actor in the play of his own existence. 1936Times Lit. Suppl. 5 Sept. 711/2 Adams's madness is, indeed, a trifle Hamletish. 1945W. Fowlie in Mod. Reading XII. 210 He is the one contemporary writer who has driven out from his nature all traces of hamletism, and yet he writes constantly about Hamlet. 1952A. R. D. Fairburn Strange Rendezvous 25 He has played the gravedigger to many a Hamletish posture of my soul.
Add:2. Used allusively, esp. to denote a troubled, indecisive, or capricious person. Also transf. and attrib.
1903G. B. Shaw Man & Superman Pref. p. xxix, Dickens, without the excuse of having to manufacture motives for Hamlets and Macbeths, superfluously punts his crew down the stream of his monthly parts. 1922Joyce Ulysses 185 Khaki Hamlets don't hesitate to shoot. The bloodboltered shambles in act five is a forecast of the concentration camp. 1941J. Maynard Russia in Flux v. 117 One type [of social missionary] is of the Don Quixote type... Another is of the Hamlet type, a bastard aristocrat, introspective and poetical, is merely ineffectual, and dies by suicide. 1952E. O'Neill Moon for Misbegotten iv. 170 Suddenly, for no reason, all the fun went out of it, and I was more melancholy than ten Hamlets. 1984N.Y. Times 26 Oct. a12/5 We cannot allow ourselves to become the Hamlet of nations, worrying endlessly over whether and how to respond. |