]
[Footnote 5: I omit all speculation as to the form which the story
assumed in the _Ur-Hamlet_. We have no evidence on the point; and, as
the poet was no doubt free to remodel the material as he thought fit,
even in following his original he was making a deliberate
artistic choice.]
[Footnote 6: Shakespeare committed it in _Romeo and Juliet_, where he
made Friar Laurence, in the concluding scene, retell the whole story of
the tragedy. Even in so early a play, such a manifest redundancy seems
unaccountable. A narrative of things already seen may, of course, be a
trait of character in the person delivering it; but, in that case, it
will generally be mendacious (for instance, Falstaff and the men in
buckram). Or it may be introduced for the sake of its effect upon the
characters to whom the narration is addressed. But in these cases its
purpose is no longer to convey information to the audience--it belongs,
not to the "intelligence department," but to the department of
analysis.
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