HonoreDB comments on [FICTION] Hamlet and the Philosopher's Stone - Less Wrong

27 Post author: HonoreDB 25 October 2011 10:31PM

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Comment author: gwern 26 October 2011 12:15:48PM 10 points [-]

Notes while reading:

  • MACOSX folder is annoying
  • pg 3 PhD anachronism; use a contemporary title, there were plenty to choose from
  • pg 5 repeated 'what's annoying; 'oh god' not ironic enough?
  • pg 10 a reference to pestilential airs might not be amiss (current phrasings too modern)
  • pg 11 cute would be quoting from Shakespeare's own verse on this topic, eg. "What win I if I gain the thing I seek? / A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy. / Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week? / Or sells eternity to get a toy? / For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy? / Or what fond beggar, but to touch the crown, / Would with the sceptre straight be stricken / down?" 'methods of rationality' again is too modern - how would a classically educated Hamlet put it?
  • pg 12 perhaps I am missing a joke, but 'new-forged shoe'? Other examples might be better - wine?
  • pg 16 speaking of classical texts, I've long liked this Iliad line - "O my friend, if we, leaving this war, could escape from age and death, I should not here be fighting in the van; but now, since many are the modes of death impending over us which no man can hope to shun, let us press on and give renown to other men, or win it for ourselves."
  • pg 22 'If only I were King of Denmark, / I might be safer.' strikes me as somehow too prosaic; he spoke riddlingly and not plainly to Gertrude, I recall
  • pg 23 'corse'?
  • pg 32 I love the red shirt bit (however, I can't help but muse on how to pointedly modify Reynaldo's speech preceding - perhaps 'not stick at adding an ally to the crown so gained'?)
  • pg 34 lampshading gets a tad too obvious here
  • pg 37 eh... and neither remarks on the crossdressing of Ophelia?
  • pg 40 Death Note references amuse me; I like it, but I think you can do that passage better
  • pg 42 I liked the accede/acedia joke there; as for the self-slaughter, might borrow some lines from the Carvaka eg "If a beast slain as an offering to the dead will itself go to heaven, why does the sacrificer not straightaway offer his father?"
  • pg 55 Hamlet's speech seems ill-written
  • pg 56 I commend the Watchmen allusion

Overall pretty good, but I didn't get that much out of it and wouldn't pay $3 for it as opposed to, say, re-reading Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

Comment author: HonoreDB 26 October 2011 04:42:48PM 4 points [-]

Thanks for the many notes.

pg 3 PhD anachronism; use a contemporary title, there were plenty to choose from

European academics in Shakespeare's day were debating the legitimacy of the Philosophiae Doctor degree (e.g. the 1571 Oratio de doctoratu Philosophico). It was apparently an important point because in Catholic countries, a Doctor had the legal right to not be tortured, while a Master did not. The first doctorates are said to have been awarded by the University of Paris in the 12th century, at the same time the original Hamlet was first written down. I can't find the earliest use of the abbreviation PhD, but Reynaldo has a motive to choose that particular abbreviation.

pg 23 'corse'?

Archaic "corpse."

Comment author: gwern 26 October 2011 04:47:06PM 1 point [-]

Ah; I did not know that about the PhD. Maybe a clearer insult then from Claudius, or omit the PhD from the dramatis personae in favor of Philosophiae Doctor?

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 26 October 2011 04:52:42PM 4 points [-]

What I'd do: Use the phrase "Philosophiae Doctor" right up until the reveal.

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 29 October 2011 12:15:00AM 0 points [-]

I second this.

Comment author: gwern 26 October 2011 04:54:24PM 0 points [-]

That might work too. Incidentally, good timing - I was pondering how to ping you to ensure that this was mentioned in the next Author's note and perhaps directly in the original chapter. Guess I don't have to, now...