Hamlet

Am I haing a memory gliche or what? Why is the word STUFF being used throught his works, incorrectly??

Do a 'Complete Works Search' for 'Stuff' http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/search/search-results.php I have no memory of its usage in place of another word ,such as posessions or belongings? Or in place of another word that would indicate ' IDEAS' ie.

13

Hamlet
[II, 2]

Rosencrantz

1404

My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.

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I only see evidence of three occasions in which the word "stuff" is used in the text. In each of these quotes, the word is used as a noun, meaning "matter, material, articles, or activities of a specified or indeterminate kind that are being referred to, indicated, or implied".

My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts. (ACT II, Scene II)

Ay, lady, it was my word.
[Lifts up the arras and sees Polonius.]
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune.
Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.
Leave wringing of your hands. Peace! sit you down
And let me wring your heart; for so I shall
If it be made of penetrable stuff;
If damned custom have not braz'd it so
That it is proof and bulwark against sense. (Act III, Scene IV)

Break not your sleeps for that. You must not think
That we are made of stuff so flat and dull
That we can let our beard be shook with danger,
And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more.
I lov'd your father, and we love ourself,
And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine-
[Enter a Messenger with letters.]
How now? What news? (Act IV, Scene VII)

Source(s)

Hamlet

The key question, being 'MEMORY', of the use, of the word STUFF- I REMEMBER the use, of different text- Please, do not confuse this, with what can be looked up, in current print.. Can anyone ( let us say over 50 yrs old) remember doing recitations, using a different words?? Check the uses in his other works- I REMEMBER recitations, not with the use, of the word, STUFF all 71 times. :(

ie

33

Macbeth
[III, 4]

Lady Macbeth

1347

O proper stuff!
This is the very painting of your fear:
This is the air-drawn dagger which, you said,
Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts,
Impostors to true fear, would well become
A woman's story at a winter's fire,
Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself!
Why do you make such faces? When all's done,
You look but on a stool.