Inside Shakespeare’s mind:

Hamlet‘ without’ Prince of Denmark?!

I have gone round and round in circles over the years but come back and rest upon Hamlet. Such a compelling character he is. This enigman of William Shakespeare is without any doubt the most powerful vibrant personality to have swept through his thirty eight plays. No single other character could dare come even within a striking distance.

One instance that Shakespeare’s mind was fully blown with nothing left for imagination and no more left over for further dramatizing Hamlet, except (as I feel) the story should have been sited in England and not Denmark and Hamlet should have been addressed as Prince of England, instead. For many reasons, the mega part of the play is sited in Denmark and England plays such minute role relatively. Shakespeare being the right royal Englishman made a slight slip up.... of course, he may have had his own reasons to do that are not apparent to us.

I see Hamlet as a living legend; wholesome and challenging to manhood. There is a bit of Hamlet in all men that can be carefully studied.

Ophelia (Lynn Seymour) being chided by Hamlet (Rudolf Nureyev) from the ballet mounted by the Royal Ballet

The play contains some of the best known lines in all the Bard’s works and the story is so powerful that it contain revenge and evil doings. All these point to Hamlet being a complicated person who attempts to unravel the trauma he goes through at the expense of other members of his family..... as well as on Ophelia. On stage, it is a gripping story, well founded and at certain points difficult to follow for a person who is not familiar with the tragedy. The main reason being, that within the original play of Hamlet is the presentation of the story by a band of street players whom Hamlet engage to test the reactions of those who were responsible for the death of his father, King Hamlet..... the assassination being his own uncle, presently the new King Claudius. This double repetition of the play, can confuse many in an audience.

In reality one can question the characters of the living. Was Hamlet really mad or did he feign it? Did Queen love her son. Much doubt is created here because she married Claudius, her brother-in-law, no sooner after her husband was buried. Of course, she had no hand in his being wiped away. Here, the Bard has not cleared the doubts because everything points against her as she accepts marriage so soon after the death of King Hamlet.

Did Hamlet really love Ophelia? If he did, why treat the poor innocent girl so harshly, long enough to drive her to suicide? Did he not expect such a thing to happen? Possibly yes but did not care. Hamlet is a mystery where people still keep asking questions for verification.

The play is all about the death of a noble hero and revolves around its revenge tragedy. Thomas Kyde who wrote revenge plays long before Shakespeare, wrote the Spanish Tragedy that remained through Shakespeare’s lifetime, very popular.

Did this story inspire Shakespeare. I think so.

A text called UR-HAMELT was written by Thomas Kyde which did not survive but many scholars think it would have fired the imagination of Shakespeare though there was a semblence of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. This story is also found in Danish history in a book written by Saxo Grammaticus in 13th century. It was published in French and Shakespeare may have read it because the details of the play are identical. Later it was translated into English in 1608, some years after Shakespeare wrote Hamlet. So, we can take for granted that the play is an adaptation from another. However, Kyde around 1594 about seven years before Hamlet was written.

Shakespeare, seldom or never invented stories but whatever he adapts, turn out to be a marvelous piece of literary genius. And it is also difficult to say when he wrote a play because they were never penned and published for sometime and performed. His Folio gives different times and different collections that seldom tally with the year of writing. A fine example is Hamlet which was written in 1601 but performed by a company boy actors long before but the current events in the play help scholars to work out when he wrote the play....not exactly though.

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Shakespeare’s most poignant and powerful character

Perhaps for the reason that Hamlet is found in Danish history, Shakespeare may have sited the major part of the tragedy in Denmark.

Does it mean that Hamlet is not a fiction? As we all believe. History do not lie. Was there really a Prince of Denmark called Hamlet? I do not know.

His love for foreign setting

Always making errors in doing so with dates and history, Shakespeare cared less for authenticity that raised eye-brows of the so-called University-Wits of his time who were against the way he was handling his works. They were his contemporaries who looked down on him because of grammar education.

Shakespeare makes no attempts to recreate a real Danish court though that major part of the play is Denmark-bound. He does use two Danish names that of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern though the court and courtiers are thoroughly English. He knew many courtiers because his theatre company played at court in numerous occasions. A well known Elizabeth courtiers was his patron and friend, the Earl of Southampton. For supporting the rebellion in Ireland of the Earl of Essex, he was thrown into the Tower of London and later released. All these feature in many of his plays.

Shakespeare has instilled many characteristics into the guise of Hamlet where he feigns madness to out-trick Claudius as well as Ophelia and later turns into a sort of melancholy. He declares:-

‘I have of late.... but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, foregone all custom of exercises and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; - this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man. How noble in reason; how infinite in faculty; in form, in moving, how express and admirable; in action how like an angel; in apprehension how like a god; the beauty of the world; the paragon of animals. And yet, to me what is this quintessence of dust’.

Act II Sce, II