Sources of Hamlet

<h2 id="scandinavian-legend">Scandinavian legend</h2>
Main article: <a href="/facts/Amleth/RA7p19Dn">Amleth</a>
The story of the prince who plots revenge on his uncle (the current king) for killing his father (the former king) is an old one. Many of the story elements—the prince feigning madness and his testing by a young woman, the prince talking to his mother and her hasty marriage to the usurper, the prince killing a hidden spy and substituting the execution of two retainers for his own—are found in a medieval tale by <a href="/facts/Saxo_Grammaticus/Po9Y7UDF">Saxo Grammaticus</a> called Vita Amlethi (part of his larger Latin work <a href="/facts/Gesta_Danorum/zCHy0ERH">Gesta Danorum</a>), which was written around 1200 AD.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:1" href="#fn:1">1</a> Older written and oral traditions from various cultures may have influenced Saxo's work. Amleth (as Hamlet is called in Saxo's version) probably derived from an oral tale told throughout <a href="/facts/Scandinavia/KpLQ40kl">Scandinavia</a>. Parallels can be found with <a href="/facts/Icelanders/ACTclSH1">Icelandic</a> legend, though no written version of the original Icelandic tale survives from before the 16th century. <a href="/facts/Torfaeus/jjrIUhx5">Torfaeus</a>, a scholar in 17th-century Iceland, made the connection between Saxo's Amleth and local oral tradition about a Prince Ambales (<a href="/facts/Aml%C3%B3%C3%B0i/RA7p19Dn">Amlóði</a>).<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:2" href="#fn:2">2</a>
Torfaeus dismissed the local tradition as "an old wive's tale" due to its incorporation of fairy-tale elements and quasi-historical legend and Torfaeus' own confusion about the hero's country of origin (not recognizing <a href="/facts/Cimbrian_Peninsula/4w9mDtLH">Cimbria</a> as a name for Denmark).<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:3" href="#fn:3">3</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:4" href="#fn:4">4</a>
Similarities include the prince's feigned madness, his accidental killing of the king's counsellor in his mother's bedroom, and the eventual slaying of his uncle.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:5" href="#fn:5">5</a>
The original <a href="/facts/Aml%C3%B3%C3%B0i/RA7p19Dn">Amlóði</a> story has been surmised to be derived from a "10th-century" Old Icelandic poem,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:6" href="#fn:6">6</a> but no such poem is known.
The "hero as fool" story has many parallels (Roman, Spanish, Scandinavian and Arabic) and can be classified as a universal, or at least common <a href="/facts/Proto-Indo-Europeans/HDhs6TuR">Indo-European</a>, narrative topos.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:7" href="#fn:7">7</a>

<h2 id="influences-on-saxo-grammaticus">Influences on Saxo Grammaticus</h2>
The two most popular candidates for written works that may have influenced Saxo, however, are the anonymous Scandinavian <a href="/facts/Hr%C3%B3lfs_saga_kraka/2Il4bNrI">Saga of Hrolf Kraki</a> and the Roman legend of Brutus, which is recorded in two separate Latin works. In Saga of Hrolf Kraki, the murdered king has two sons—<a href="/facts/Hro%C3%B0gar/6Ed0ajSI">Hroar</a> and <a href="/facts/Halga/9oJccBml">Helgi</a>—who assume the names of Ham and Hráni for concealment. They spend most of the story in disguise, rather than feigning madness, though Ham does act childishly at one point to deflect suspicion. The sequence of events differs from Shakespeare's as well.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:8" href="#fn:8">8</a>
In contrast, the Roman story of Brutus focuses on feigned madness. Its hero, Lucius ('shining, light'), changes his name and persona to Brutus ('dull, stupid'), playing the role to avoid the fate of his father and brothers, and eventually slaying his family's killer, King Tarquinius. In addition to writing in the Latin language of the Romans, Saxo adjusted the story to reflect classical Roman concepts of virtue and heroism.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:9" href="#fn:9">9</a> A reasonably accurate version of Saxo's story was translated into French in 1570 by <a href="/facts/Fran%C3%A7ois_de_Belleforest/b3rg2pMg">François de Belleforest</a> in his Histoires Tragiques.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:10" href="#fn:10">10</a> Belleforest embellished Saxo's text substantially, almost doubling its length, and introduced the hero's <a href="/facts/Melancholia/mkmzB0wy">melancholy</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:11" href="#fn:11">11</a>

<h2 id="the-ur-hamlet">The Ur-Hamlet</h2>
Main article: <a href="/facts/Ur-Hamlet/ClIcY7ee">Ur-Hamlet</a>
Shakespeare's main source is believed to be an earlier play—now lost—known today as the <a href="/facts/Ur-Hamlet/ClIcY7ee">Ur-Hamlet</a>. Possibly written by <a href="/facts/Thomas_Kyd/jzvU9FPy">Thomas Kyd</a> or a 25 year-old Shakespeare himself,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:12" href="#fn:12">12</a> the Ur-Hamlet would have been in performance by 1589, and was seemingly the first to include a ghost in the story.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:13" href="#fn:13">13</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:14" href="#fn:14">14</a> Shakespeare's company, <a href="/facts/Lord_Chamberlain%27s_Men/5dA8LnpC">the Chamberlain's Men</a>, may have purchased that play and performed a version, which Shakespeare reworked, for some time.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:15" href="#fn:15">15</a> Since no copy of the Ur-Hamlet has survived, it is impossible to compare its language and style with the known works of any candidate for its authorship. Consequently, there is no direct evidence that Kyd wrote it, nor any evidence that the play was not an early version of Hamlet by Shakespeare himself. This latter idea—placing Hamlet far earlier than the generally accepted date, with a much longer period of development—has attracted some support, though others dismiss it as speculation.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:16" href="#fn:16">16</a> <a href="/facts/Francis_Meres/Srcux8Fj">Francis Meres</a>'s Palladis Tamia (published in 1598, probably October) provides a list of twelve named Shakespeare plays, but Hamlet is not among them. This is not conclusive, however, as other then-extant Shakespeare plays were not on Meres' list either.
The upshot is that scholars cannot assert with any confidence how much material Shakespeare took from the Ur-Hamlet (if it even existed), how much from Belleforest or Saxo, and how much from other contemporary sources (such as Kyd's <a href="/facts/The_Spanish_Tragedy/pML1ceFh">The Spanish Tragedy</a>). No clear evidence exists that Shakespeare made any direct references to Saxo's version (although its Latin text was widely available at the time). However, elements of Belleforest's version do appear in Shakespeare's play but are not in Saxo's story, so whether Shakespeare took these from Belleforest directly or through the Ur-Hamlet remains unclear.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:17" href="#fn:17">17</a>
It is clear, though, that several elements did change somewhere between Belleforest's and Shakespeare's versions. For one, unlike Saxo and Belleforest, Shakespeare's play has no all-knowing narrator, thus inviting the audience to draw their own conclusions about the motives of its characters. And the traditional story takes place across several years, while Shakespeare's covers a few weeks. Belleforest's version details Hamlet's plan for revenge, while in Shakespeare's play Hamlet has no apparent plan.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:18" href="#fn:18">18</a> Shakespeare also adds some elements that locate the action in 15th-century Christian Denmark instead of a medieval pagan setting. <a href="/facts/Elsinore/32kTY1XA">Elsinore</a>, for example, would have been familiar to <a href="/facts/Elizabethan/DMfrDl3t">Elizabethan</a> England, as a new castle had been built recently there, and <a href="/facts/University_of_Wittenberg/DXhaJLhH">Wittenberg</a>, Hamlet's university, was widely known for its <a href="/facts/Protestant/NXja4K3g">Protestant</a> teachings.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:19" href="#fn:19">19</a> Other elements of Shakespeare's Hamlet absent in medieval versions include the secrecy that surrounds the old king's murder, the inclusion of <a href="/facts/Laertes_(Hamlet)/85d9XBsr">Laertes</a> and <a href="/facts/Fortinbras/Vjr7P6ds">Fortinbras</a> (who offer parallels to Hamlet), the testing of the king via a play, and Hamlet's death at the moment he gains his revenge.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:20" href="#fn:20">20</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:21" href="#fn:21">21</a>

<h2 id="elizabethan-court">Elizabethan court</h2>
For more than a century, Shakespearean scholars have identified several of the play's major characters with specific members of the Elizabethan court. In 1869, <a href="/facts/George_Russell_French/YkJU7rvB">George Russell French</a> theorized that Hamlet's <a href="/facts/Polonius/SYCVDPDp">Polonius</a> might have been inspired by <a href="/facts/William_Cecil,_1st_Baron_Burghley/K97VjJha">William Cecil</a> (Lord Burghley)—Lord High Treasurer and chief counsellor to Queen <a href="/facts/Elizabeth_I_of_England/5cT5QrWj">Elizabeth I</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:22" href="#fn:22">22</a> French also speculated that the characters of Polonius's children, <a href="/facts/Ophelia/dKqYHAD5">Ophelia</a> and <a href="/facts/Laertes_(Hamlet)/85d9XBsr">Laertes</a>, represented two of Burghley's children, <a href="/facts/Anne_Cecil/emwxqcpE">Anne</a> and <a href="/facts/Robert_Cecil,_1st_Earl_of_Salisbury/4RTr9UAa">Robert Cecil</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:23" href="#fn:23">23</a> In 1930, <a href="/facts/E._K._Chambers/1Cg6TWa7">E. K. Chambers</a> suggested that Polonius's advice to Laertes may have echoed Burghley's to his son Robert,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:24" href="#fn:24">24</a> and in 1932, <a href="/facts/John_Dover_Wilson/lVcT7pq6">John Dover Wilson</a> commented "the figure of Polonius is almost without doubt intended as a caricature of Burleigh, who died on 4 August 1598".<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:25" href="#fn:25">25</a> In 1963, <a href="/facts/A._L._Rowse/IHSRG8Qd">A. L. Rowse</a> said that Polonius's tedious verbosity might have resembled Burghley's,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:26" href="#fn:26">26</a> and in 1964, <a href="/facts/Joel_Hurstfield/98N0JsMl">Joel Hurstfield</a> wrote that "[t]he governing classes were both paternalistic and patronizing; and nowhere is this attitude better displayed than in the advice which that archetype of elder statesmen William Cecil, Lord Burghley—Shakespeare's Polonius—prepared for his son".<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:27" href="#fn:27">27</a>
Lilian Winstanley thought the name Corambis (Polonius's name in the 1st Quarto) suggested Burghley,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:28" href="#fn:28">28</a> though Krystyna Kujawinska Courtney has pointed out that the name "Corambis" translates to "reheated cabbage" in Latin, i.e. "a boring old man".<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:29" href="#fn:29">29</a>
In 1921, Winstanley claimed "absolute" certainty that "the historical analogues exist; that they are important, numerous, detailed and undeniable" and that "Shakespeare is using a large element of contemporary history in Hamlet."<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:30" href="#fn:30">30</a> She compared Hamlet with both the Earl of Essex and James I. She also identified Polonius with Burghley parallels, and noted a "curious parallel" in the relationship between Ophelia and Hamlet with that of Burghley's daughter, Anne Cecil, and her husband, <a href="/facts/Edward_de_Vere,_17th_Earl_of_Oxford/fjXI7FxE">Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford</a>. Winstanley noted similar parallels in the relationship of Elizabeth Vernon and <a href="/facts/Henry_Wriothesley,_3rd_Earl_of_Southampton/4eYRDY3M">Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:31" href="#fn:31">31</a>
<a href="/facts/Harold_Jenkins_(Shakespeare_scholar)/YqtojtX6">Harold Jenkins</a> criticised the idea of any direct personal satire as "unlikely" and "uncharacteristic of Shakespeare",<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:32" href="#fn:32">32</a> while G. R. Hibbard hypothesized that differences in names (Corambis/Polonius; Montano/Raynoldo) between the <a href="/facts/Hamlet_Q1/lgNLWStX">first quarto</a> and subsequent editions might reflect a desire not to offend scholars at Oxford University, since Polonius was close to the Latin name for <a href="/facts/Robert_Pullen/2LP7kFN4">Robert Pullen</a>, founder of Oxford University, and Reynaldo too close for safety to <a href="/facts/John_Rainolds/qNdbv9wz">John Rainolds</a>, the President of <a href="/facts/Corpus_Christi_College,_Oxford/9xIA55ER">Corpus Christi College</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:33" href="#fn:33">33</a>

<h2 id="shakespeares-son">Shakespeare's son</h2>
In Belleforest's version the hero's name had been Amleth, and in Saxo's version Amlethus. The author of the <a href="/facts/Ur-Hamlet/ClIcY7ee">Ur-Hamlet</a>, perhaps Shakespeare himself, seems to have been the first to drop the final H (originally indicating a Scandinavian TH-sound) and to attach an H to the front of the name.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:34" href="#fn:34">34</a> Most scholars, including Harold Bloom,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:35" href="#fn:35">35</a> dismiss the idea that Hamlet is in any way connected with Shakespeare's only son, <a href="/facts/Hamnet_Shakespeare/o3uwYTnb">Hamnet Shakespeare</a>, who died at age eleven. Conventional wisdom holds that Hamlet is too obviously connected to legend, and the name Hamnet was quite popular at the time.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:36" href="#fn:36">36</a> However, <a href="/facts/Stephen_Greenblatt/t3KNu9NU">Stephen Greenblatt</a> has argued that the coincidence of the names and Shakespeare's grief for the loss of his son may lie at the heart of the tragedy. He notes that the name of Hamnet Sadler, the Stratford neighbor after whom Hamnet was named, was often written as Hamlet Sadler and that, in the loose orthography of the time, the names were virtually interchangeable.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:37" href="#fn:37">37</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:38" href="#fn:38">38</a>

<h2 id="giordano-bruno">Giordano Bruno</h2>
Benno Tschischwitz [de], a nineteenth-century translator of Shakespeare's works into German, was the first to note the similarities between Bruno's philosophy and phraseology with the play Hamlet, in his "Shakespeares Hamlet, nach historischen Gesichtspunkten erläutert" of 1868.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:39" href="#fn:39">39</a> The editor of the <a href="/facts/Horace_Howard_Furness/fH4YXH5n">New Variorum</a> edition of Hamlet, <a href="/facts/Horace_Howard_Furness/fH4YXH5n">H. H. Furness</a>, considered the similarities to be slight, and not meaningful given Shakespeare's eclectic mind.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:40" href="#fn:40">40</a> <a href="/facts/John_Mackinnon_Robertson/zwsaFzUs">John Mackinnon Robertson</a>, writing in 1897, suggested that the similarities in wording between Bruno's comedy Il Candelajo and Hamlet were completely commonplace for the time, and actually were within the text of "<a href="/facts/Ur-Hamlet/ClIcY7ee">Ur-Hamlet</a>" (above), rather than Shakespeare's later play: "drafted by a much lesser man than Shakespere. [<a href="/facts/Sic/qB9MUUWF">sic</a>]".<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:41" href="#fn:41">41</a>

<h2 id="notes-and-references">Notes and references</h2>
<h3>Notes</h3>

<h3>References</h3>

<h2 id="sources">Sources</h2>
<h3>Editions of Hamlet</h3>

<ul><li>Edwards, Phillip, ed. (1985). <a href="https://archive.org/details/hamletsh00shak">Hamlet, Prince of Denmark</a>. <a href="/facts/New_Cambridge_Shakespeare/yKEB2F2p">New Cambridge Shakespeare</a>. Cambridge: <a href="/facts/Cambridge_University_Press/fgEBSSRq">Cambridge University Press</a>. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 0-19-283416-9.</li>
<li>Hibbard, G. R., ed. (1987). <a href="https://archive.org/details/hamletsh00shak">Hamlet</a>. <a href="/facts/The_Oxford_Shakespeare/UEPS73D0">The Oxford Shakespeare</a>. Oxford: <a href="/facts/Oxford_University_Press/CYyTzzWG">Oxford University Press</a>. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 0-19-283416-9.</li>
<li>Jenkins, Harold, ed. (1982). Hamlet. <a href="/facts/The_Arden_Shakespeare/ayh8tlBx">The Arden Shakespeare</a>, second series. London: <a href="/facts/Methuen_Publishing/Uo4RmhfL">Methuen</a>. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 1-903436-67-2.</li></ul>

<h3>Secondary sources</h3>

<ul><li><a href="/facts/Peter_Alexander_(Shakespearean_scholar)/GI3EfGoW">Alexander, Peter</a> (1964). Alexander's Introductions to Shakespeare. London: <a href="/facts/William_Collins,_Sons/twpSGSjH">Collins</a>. <a href="/facts/OCLC_(identifier)/Yqad8waq">OCLC</a> <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/257743100">257743100</a>.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Harold_Bloom/qgS4fgQR">Bloom, Harold</a> (2001). Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (Open Market ed.). Harlow, Essex: <a href="/facts/Longman/l5JQ1NGz">Longman</a>. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 1-57322-751-X.</li>
<li>–– (2003). Hamlet: Poem Unlimited. Edinburgh: <a href="/facts/Canongate_Books/Vw4kUeR5">Canongate</a>. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 1-84195-461-6.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Andrew_Cairncross/MMqxr0Df">Cairncross, Andrew S.</a> (1975) [1936]. The Problem of Hamlet: A Solution (Reprint ed.). Norwood, PA: Norwood Editions. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 0-88305-130-3.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/E._K._Chambers/1Cg6TWa7">Chambers, E. K.</a> (1930). <a href="https://archive.org/details/williamshakespea017475mbp">William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems</a>. Vol. I. Oxford: <a href="/facts/Clarendon_Press/CYyTzzWG">Clarendon Press</a>. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 0-19-811774-4.</li>
<li>Collinson, L. A. (2011). "A New Etymology for Hamlet? The Names Amlethus, Amlođi and Admlithi". <a href="/facts/Review_of_English_Studies/6WHR1b01">Review of English Studies</a>. 62 (257). <a href="/facts/Oxford_University_Press/CYyTzzWG">Oxford University Press</a>: 675–694. <a href="/facts/Doi_(identifier)/muM9Etpq">doi</a>:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1093%2Fres%2Fhgr008">10.1093/res/hgr008</a>. <a href="/facts/EISSN_(identifier)/DPAflDvU">eISSN</a> <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/issn/1471-6968">1471-6968</a>. <a href="/facts/ISSN_(identifier)/DPAflDvU">ISSN</a> <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0034-6551">0034-6551</a> – via <a href="/facts/Oxford_University_Press/CYyTzzWG">Oxford Journals Online</a>.</li>
<li>Courtney, Krystyna Kujawinska (2003). <a href="http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Criticism/shakespearein/poland1/">"Shakespeare in Poland"</a>. <a href="http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Criticism/shakespearein/">Shakespeare around the Globe</a>. Internet Shakespeare Editions (<a href="/facts/University_of_Victoria/cpS82Pgt">University of Victoria</a>). <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 1-55058-302-6.</li>
<li>Gatti, Hilary (1989). The Renaissance Drama of Knowledge. London: <a href="/facts/Routledge/aSwcES11">Routledge</a>. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 0-415-03207-5.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/George_Russell_French/YkJU7rvB">French, George Russell</a> (1975) [1869]. <a href="https://archive.org/details/cu31924079621094">Shakespeareana Genealogica</a>. Vol. I (reprinted ed.). London: <a href="/facts/AMS_Press/TgCyf95k">AMS Press</a>. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 0-404-02575-7.</li>
<li>Gollancz, Israel, ed. (1898). <a href="https://archive.org/details/hamletinicelandb00golluoft">Hamlet in Iceland: Being the Icelandic romantic Ambales saga, edited and translated, with extracts from five Ambales Rimur and other illustrative texts, for the most part now first printed, and an introductory essay</a>. Northern Library. Vol. III. London: David Nutt, Strand. <a href="/facts/OCLC_(identifier)/Yqad8waq">OCLC</a> <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/3254561">3254561</a>.</li>
<li>——, ed. (1926). <a href="https://archive.org/details/thesourcesofhamletgollancz/page/319/mode/1up?q=Belleforest&view=theater">The Sources of Hamlet: with an essay on the legend</a>. The Shakespeare Classics. Oxford University Press. <a href="/facts/OCLC_(identifier)/Yqad8waq">OCLC</a> <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/2192790">2192790</a>.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Stephen_Greenblatt/t3KNu9NU">Greenblatt, Stephen</a> (2004). <a href="https://archive.org/details/willinworldhows00gree">Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare</a>. New York: <a href="/facts/W.W._Norton_%26_Co./3cwCSubC">W.W. Norton & Co.</a> <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 0-393-05057-2.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Stephen_Greenblatt/t3KNu9NU">Greenblatt, Stephen</a> (21 October 2004). <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17483">"The Death of Hamnet and the Making of Hamlet"</a>. <a href="/facts/The_New_York_Review_of_Books/jvHxU3fn">The New York Review of Books</a>. Vol. 51, no. 16.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Saxo_Grammaticus/Po9Y7UDF">Saxo Grammaticus</a> (1983). Hansen, William (ed.). Saxo Grammaticus and the Life of Hamlet: A Translation, History, and Commentary. Lincoln: <a href="/facts/University_of_Nebraska_Press/pUx1cI4q">University of Nebraska Press</a>. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 0-8032-2318-8.</li>
<li>Harrison, Henry; Harrison, Gyđa Pulling (1912). Surnames of the United Kingdom: A Concise Etymological Dictionary. Vol. 1. London: Eaton Press. <a href="/facts/OCLC_(identifier)/Yqad8waq">OCLC</a> <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/5021363">5021363</a>.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Ferdinand_Holthausen/9rhR3FHy">Holthausen, Ferdinand</a> (1948). Vergleichendes und etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altwestnordischen, Altnorwegisch-isländischen, einschliesslich der Lehn- und Fremdwörter sowie der Eigennamen. <a href="/facts/G%C3%B6ttingen/9KyeWn2X">Göttingen</a>: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. <a href="/facts/OCLC_(identifier)/Yqad8waq">OCLC</a> <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/215188285">215188285</a>.</li>
<li>Hurstfield, Joel (1964). "The Elizabethan People in the Age of Shakespeare". In Hurstfield, Joel; <a href="/facts/James_Runcieman_Sutherland/nrl2K3N4">Sutherland, James</a> (eds.). <a href="https://archive.org/details/shakespearesworl0000suth">Shakespeare's World</a>. Edward Arnold.</li>
<li>Jackson, MacDonald (1991). "The Year's Contributions to Shakespeare Studies: 3 – Editions and Textual Studies". In <a href="/facts/Stanley_Wells/Pe53NPwU">Wells, Stanley</a> (ed.). The Tempest and After. <a href="/facts/Shakespeare_Survey/FH7KB5WC">Shakespeare Survey</a>. Vol. 43. <a href="/facts/Cambridge_University_Press/fgEBSSRq">Cambridge University Press</a>. pp. 255–270. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 9781139053204.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Harold_Jenkins_(Shakespeare_scholar)/YqtojtX6">Jenkins, Harold</a> (1955). <a href="http://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/view?docId=StudiesInBiblio/uvaBook/tei/sibv007.xml;chunk.id=vol007.05">"The Relation between the Second Quarto and the Folio Text of "Hamlet""</a>. <a href="/facts/Studies_in_Bibliography/PSx0dgK6">Studies in Bibliography</a>. 7: 69–83. <a href="/facts/ISSN_(identifier)/DPAflDvU">ISSN</a> <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0081-7600">0081-7600</a>. <a href="/facts/JSTOR_(identifier)/YTeVmaJ7">JSTOR</a> <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40372122">40372122</a>.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/A._L._Rowse/IHSRG8Qd">Rowse, A. L.</a> (1995) [1963]. William Shakespeare: A Biography. New York: <a href="/facts/Barnes_%26_Noble/IIcN2meE">Barnes & Noble Books</a>. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 1-56619-804-6.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/J._Dover_Wilson/lVcT7pq6">Wilson, J. Dover</a> (1932). <a href="https://archive.org/details/essentialshakesp0000wils_g9c4">The Essential Shakespeare: A Biographical Adventure</a>. Cambridge: <a href="/facts/Cambridge_University_Press/fgEBSSRq">Cambridge University Press</a>.</li>
<li>Winstanley, Lilian (1921). <a href="https://archive.org/details/cu31924013138825">Hamlet and the Scottish succession: Being an examination of the relations of the play of Hamlet to the Scottish ruccession and the Essex conspiracy</a>. Cambridge: <a href="/facts/Cambridge_University_Press/fgEBSSRq">Cambridge University Press</a>. <a href="/facts/OL_(identifier)/A13NLNNh">OL</a> <a href="https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7060036M">7060036M</a>.</li></ul>

<h2 id="references">References</h2>

<ol>
<li id="fn:1">Saxo & Hansen 1983, pp. 1–5. - Saxo Grammaticus (1983). Hansen, William (ed.). Saxo Grammaticus and the Life of Hamlet: A Translation, History, and Commentary. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-2318-8. <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:2">The etymology of the name is unknown, and there are various suggestions. In 1948, Ferdinand Holthausen suggested it is based on the "fool, simpleton" interpretation of the name, composing the name from Old Norse ama "to vex, annoy, molest" and óðr "fierceness, madness" (also in the theonym Odin).[2] A more recent suggestion, by L. A. Collinson in The Review of English Studies, is based on the kenning associating Amlóði with the mythological mill grotti, and derives it from the Old Irish name Admlithi "great-grinding", attested in Togail Bruidne Dá Derga.[3] <a href="/wiki/%C3%93%C3%B0r" target="_blank">/wiki/%C3%93%C3%B0r</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:3">Saxo & Hansen 1983, p. 7. - Saxo Grammaticus (1983). Hansen, William (ed.). Saxo Grammaticus and the Life of Hamlet: A Translation, History, and Commentary. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-2318-8. <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:4">Gollancz 1898, pp. 3–13. - Gollancz, Israel, ed. (1898). Hamlet in Iceland: Being the Icelandic romantic Ambales saga, edited and translated, with extracts from five Ambales Rimur and other illustrative texts, for the most part now first printed, and an introductory essay. Northern Library. Vol. III. London: David Nutt, Strand. OCLC 3254561. <a href="https://archive.org/details/hamletinicelandb00golluoft" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/hamletinicelandb00golluoft</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:5">Saxo & Hansen 1983, pp. 5–15. - Saxo Grammaticus (1983). Hansen, William (ed.). Saxo Grammaticus and the Life of Hamlet: A Translation, History, and Commentary. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-2318-8. <a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:6">Harrison & Harrison 1912, p. 184. - Harrison, Henry; Harrison, Gyđa Pulling (1912). Surnames of the United Kingdom: A Concise Etymological Dictionary. Vol. 1. London: Eaton Press. OCLC 5021363. <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/5021363" target="_blank">https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/5021363</a> <a href="#fnref:6" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:7">Saxo & Hansen 1983, pp. 36–37. - Saxo Grammaticus (1983). Hansen, William (ed.). Saxo Grammaticus and the Life of Hamlet: A Translation, History, and Commentary. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-2318-8. <a href="#fnref:7" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:8">Saxo & Hansen 1983, pp. 16–25. - Saxo Grammaticus (1983). Hansen, William (ed.). Saxo Grammaticus and the Life of Hamlet: A Translation, History, and Commentary. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-2318-8. <a href="#fnref:8" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:9">Saxo & Hansen 1983, pp. 25–37. - Saxo Grammaticus (1983). Hansen, William (ed.). Saxo Grammaticus and the Life of Hamlet: A Translation, History, and Commentary. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-2318-8. <a href="#fnref:9" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:10">Edwards 1985, pp. 1–2. - Edwards, Phillip, ed. (1985). Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. New Cambridge Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-19-283416-9. <a href="https://archive.org/details/hamletsh00shak" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/hamletsh00shak</a> <a href="#fnref:10" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:11">Saxo & Hansen 1983, pp. 66–67. - Saxo Grammaticus (1983). Hansen, William (ed.). Saxo Grammaticus and the Life of Hamlet: A Translation, History, and Commentary. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-2318-8. <a href="#fnref:11" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:12">Bloom 2001, p. 386. - Bloom, Harold (2001). Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (Open Market ed.). Harlow, Essex: Longman. ISBN 1-57322-751-X. <a href="#fnref:12" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:13">Bloom 2001, pp. 387–405. - Bloom, Harold (2001). Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (Open Market ed.). Harlow, Essex: Longman. ISBN 1-57322-751-X. <a href="#fnref:13" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:14">Jenkins 1982, pp. 82–85. - Jenkins, Harold, ed. (1982). Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare, second series. London: Methuen. ISBN 1-903436-67-2. <a href="#fnref:14" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:15">Saxo & Hansen 1983, p. 67. - Saxo Grammaticus (1983). Hansen, William (ed.). Saxo Grammaticus and the Life of Hamlet: A Translation, History, and Commentary. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-2318-8. <a href="#fnref:15" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:16">In his 1936 book The Problem of Hamlet: A Solution Andrew Cairncross asserted that the Hamlet referred to in 1589 was written by Shakespeare;[17] Peter Alexander,[18] Eric Sams[19] and, more recently, Harold Bloom[20][21] have agreed. However Harold Jenkins, the editor of the second series Arden edition of the play, considers that there are not grounds for thinking that the Ur-Hamlet is an early work by Shakespeare, which he then rewrote.[22] <a href="#fnref:16" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:17">Saxo & Hansen 1983, pp. 66–68. - Saxo Grammaticus (1983). Hansen, William (ed.). Saxo Grammaticus and the Life of Hamlet: A Translation, History, and Commentary. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-2318-8. <a href="#fnref:17" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:18">Saxo & Hansen 1983, pp. 69–72. - Saxo Grammaticus (1983). Hansen, William (ed.). Saxo Grammaticus and the Life of Hamlet: A Translation, History, and Commentary. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-2318-8. <a href="#fnref:18" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:19">Saxo & Hansen 1983, pp. 83–85. - Saxo Grammaticus (1983). Hansen, William (ed.). Saxo Grammaticus and the Life of Hamlet: A Translation, History, and Commentary. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-2318-8. <a href="#fnref:19" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:20">Edwards 1985, p. 2. - Edwards, Phillip, ed. (1985). Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. New Cambridge Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-19-283416-9. <a href="https://archive.org/details/hamletsh00shak" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/hamletsh00shak</a> <a href="#fnref:20" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:21">Harold Jenkins, in the Arden Shakespeare second series edition of Hamlet, includes a detailed discussion of many possible influences that may have found their way into the play.[27] <a href="/wiki/Arden_Shakespeare" target="_blank">/wiki/Arden_Shakespeare</a> <a href="#fnref:21" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:22">French 1975, p. 301. - French, George Russell (1975) [1869]. Shakespeareana Genealogica. Vol. I (reprinted ed.). London: AMS Press. ISBN 0-404-02575-7. <a href="https://archive.org/details/cu31924079621094" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/cu31924079621094</a> <a href="#fnref:22" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:23">French 1975, pp. 299–310. - French, George Russell (1975) [1869]. Shakespeareana Genealogica. Vol. I (reprinted ed.). London: AMS Press. ISBN 0-404-02575-7. <a href="https://archive.org/details/cu31924079621094" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/cu31924079621094</a> <a href="#fnref:23" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:24">Chambers 1930, p. 418. - Chambers, E. K. (1930). William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems. Vol. I. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-811774-4. <a href="https://archive.org/details/williamshakespea017475mbp" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/williamshakespea017475mbp</a> <a href="#fnref:24" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:25">Wilson 1932, p. 104. - Wilson, J. Dover (1932). The Essential Shakespeare: A Biographical Adventure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. <a href="https://archive.org/details/essentialshakesp0000wils_g9c4" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/essentialshakesp0000wils_g9c4</a> <a href="#fnref:25" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:26">Rowse 1995, p. 323. - Rowse, A. L. (1995) [1963]. William Shakespeare: A Biography. New York: Barnes & Noble Books. ISBN 1-56619-804-6. <a href="#fnref:26" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:27">Hurstfield 1964, pp. 27–47. - Hurstfield, Joel (1964). "The Elizabethan People in the Age of Shakespeare". In Hurstfield, Joel; Sutherland, James (eds.). Shakespeare's World. Edward Arnold. <a href="https://archive.org/details/shakespearesworl0000suth" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/shakespearesworl0000suth</a> <a href="#fnref:27" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:28">Winstanley 1921, p. 114. - Winstanley, Lilian (1921). Hamlet and the Scottish succession: Being an examination of the relations of the play of Hamlet to the Scottish ruccession and the Essex conspiracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. OL 7060036M. <a href="https://archive.org/details/cu31924013138825" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/cu31924013138825</a> <a href="#fnref:28" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:29">Courtney 2003, p. 2. - Courtney, Krystyna Kujawinska (2003). "Shakespeare in Poland". Shakespeare around the Globe. Internet Shakespeare Editions (University of Victoria). ISBN 1-55058-302-6. <a href="http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Criticism/shakespearein/poland1/" target="_blank">http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/Criticism/shakespearein/poland1/</a> <a href="#fnref:29" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:30">Winstanley 1921, pp. 165–166. - Winstanley, Lilian (1921). Hamlet and the Scottish succession: Being an examination of the relations of the play of Hamlet to the Scottish ruccession and the Essex conspiracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. OL 7060036M. <a href="https://archive.org/details/cu31924013138825" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/cu31924013138825</a> <a href="#fnref:30" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:31">Winstanley 1921, pp. 122–124, 131–135. - Winstanley, Lilian (1921). Hamlet and the Scottish succession: Being an examination of the relations of the play of Hamlet to the Scottish ruccession and the Essex conspiracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. OL 7060036M. <a href="https://archive.org/details/cu31924013138825" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/cu31924013138825</a> <a href="#fnref:31" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:32">Jenkins 1982, p. 142. - Jenkins, Harold, ed. (1982). Hamlet. The Arden Shakespeare, second series. London: Methuen. ISBN 1-903436-67-2. <a href="#fnref:32" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:33">Hibbard 1987, pp. 74–75. - Hibbard, G. R., ed. (1987). Hamlet. The Oxford Shakespeare. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-283416-9. <a href="https://archive.org/details/hamletsh00shak" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/hamletsh00shak</a> <a href="#fnref:33" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:34">The 1608 translation of Belleforest into English calls this story the Hystorie of Hamblet, presumably because the name Hamlet was now well-known in England, because of the play.[40] <a href="#fnref:34" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:35">Bloom 2001, pp. 389ff. - Bloom, Harold (2001). Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (Open Market ed.). Harlow, Essex: Longman. ISBN 1-57322-751-X. <a href="#fnref:35" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:36">Saxo & Hansen 1983, p. 6. - Saxo Grammaticus (1983). Hansen, William (ed.). Saxo Grammaticus and the Life of Hamlet: A Translation, History, and Commentary. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-2318-8. <a href="#fnref:36" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:37">Greenblatt 2004a, p. 311. - Greenblatt, Stephen (2004). Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN 0-393-05057-2. <a href="https://archive.org/details/willinworldhows00gree" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/willinworldhows00gree</a> <a href="#fnref:37" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:38">Greenblatt 2004b. - Greenblatt, Stephen (21 October 2004). "The Death of Hamnet and the Making of Hamlet". The New York Review of Books. Vol. 51, no. 16. <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17483" target="_blank">http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17483</a> <a href="#fnref:38" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:39">von Reichlin-Meldegg, Carl Alexander (1868). "Tschischwitz: Shakespeare-Forschungen". Heidelberger Jahrbücher der Literatur (19). Heidelberg University: 284–295. doi:10.11588/diglit.51353. <a href="https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51353#0292" target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51353#0292</a> <a href="#fnref:39" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:40">Furness, Horace Howard. A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: Hamlet. Vol. IV Appendix I. Philadelphia: Lippincott. p. 332. OCLC 871785531. To me this similarity of phrases, or of the principles of philosophy, is of the faintest. […Shakespeare…] was myriad-minded. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vPRfAAAAcAAJ&dq=Shakespeare+%22myriad+minded%22+furness&pg=PA332" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/books?id=vPRfAAAAcAAJ&dq=Shakespeare+%22myriad+minded%22+furness&pg=PA332</a> <a href="#fnref:40" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:41">Robertson, J. M. (1897). Montaigne and Shakspere. London: The University Press. p. 82. OCLC 458047163. …the bases of the hypothesis are of the scantiest and the flimsiest. <a href="/wiki/J._M._Robertson" target="_blank">/wiki/J._M._Robertson</a> <a href="#fnref:41" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
</ol>

Sources of Hamlet open-in-new

Sources of Hamlet