Hamlet
Historical Records
The LPD treats the play documented by the entry in Henslowe's Diary and alluded to by Nashe (1589) and Lodge (1596) as the same play; it considers this early version of the Hamlet story—universally and hereinafter called the "Ur-Hamlet"— to be essentially discrete from the Hamlets preserved in Q1 (1603), Q2 (1604-5), and F (1623).
Henslowe's Diary
F. 9 (Greg, I.16)
In June 1594, Henslowe entered the following heading into his diary:
- Jn the name of god Amen begininge at newing
- ton my Lord Admeralle men & my Lorde chamberlain
- men As ffolowethe 1594
Henslowe then listed the following title as one of six plays given performances from 3 through 13 June 1594 under that rubric:
ye 9 of June 1594 ………. Res at hamlet ………. viijs
Theatrical Provenance
Nashe's reference to "whole Hamlets ... handfuls of Tragicall speeches" implies a public performance, c. 1588 (for the full passage, see References to the Play, below). Nashe does not hint at a company, but even if he did, that clue would not necessarily indicate a venue. Odds are that the play was performed in London; but given the approximate date of 1588-9, at which time companies with London venues were also touring, odds are that it was performed in the provinces.
The entry in Henslowe's Diary, in contrast, is specific on venue and date: the playhouse at Newington, 9 June 1594. The heading names two companies, the Admiral's players and the Chamberlain's players. Scholars have not agreed on whether the companies performed separately or in some ad hoc amalgamation, so it is impossible to say with certainty who the performers on 9 June were. However, this much is certain: the play does not reappear in Henslowe's lists when the Admiral's men return to the Rose. Scholars have therefore deduced that the play became (or remained) the property of the Chamberlain's men.
Lodge's allusion to the ghost at the Theater that cried out, "Hamlet, revenge," seems to identify the location of the "Ur-Hamlet," c. 1595-6, at the Burbages' Shoreditch playhouse (for the full passage, see References to the Play, below). However, Lodge could have been remembering an earlier run the Theater, even that which Nashe also remembered.
Probable Genre(s)
Tragedy (Harbage); most likely of the revenge type
Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues
Saxo Grammaticus, Danorum regum heroumque historiae (1514)
Summaries of the narrative told by Saxo Grammaticus are ubiquitous in the scholarly literature on Shakespeare's Hamlet. Here, because of its relative brevity and freedom from editorial opinion, is the lightly edited summary provided by G. R. Hibbard (7-9). Geoffrey Bullough provides a standard English translation of Saxo in Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962).
In Saxo's account two brothers, Horwendil and Feng, are appointed governors of Jutland by Rorik, King of Denmark. Horwendil wins great fame as a Viking, and sets the seal on that fame by killing Koll, the King of Norway, in single combat. Rorik rewards him by giving him the hand of his daughter Gerutha in marriage. Gerutha bears Horwendil a son, Amleth. But Horwendil's success arounses the envy of his brother Feng, who treacherously waylays and murders him, then marries his widow .... Feng glosses over the murder, which is public knowledge, with smooth words and a hypocritical show of concern for Gerutha that find a ready acceptance in the sycophantic court.
Young Amleth, alone and almost friendless but fully aware of Feng's guilt, dedicates himself to revenge. First, however, he must grow up. He therefore seeks to give Feng the impression that he is harmless by pretending to have lost his wits. Filthy and in rags, he talks seeming nonsense which, nonetheless, has its point for those percipient enough to see it. For instance, he spends much of his time in making wooden crooks armed with sharp barbs, and, when asked what he is doing, replies that he is preparing javelins to be used in avenging his father. The answer is greeted with scoffs. All the same, some of the acuter courtiers have their suspicions. Two traps are laid. A beautiful girl, whom Amleth has known from childhood, is ordered to seduce him and worm his secret out of him. The plot fails because Amleth's foster-brother warns him of it. Then a counsellor of Feng's has a bright idea. He suggests that Feng absent himself from the court for a short time, and that, during his absence, Amleth and his mother be brought together in the Queen's chamber where, he is sure, Amleth will speak with complete candour. Before the interview begins, however, the counsellor will have concealed himself in the chamber, and later will reveal to Feng whatever he discovers. The Queen knows no more of this plan than does Amleth. But the wily counsellor has badly underrated the Prince's caution and cunning. On entering the chamber, Amleth, putting on his usual show of madness, crows like a cock, flaps his arms as thought they were wings, and eventually jumps on the straw mattress under which the spy is hiding. Feeling the eavesdropper under this feet the Prince promptly runs him through, pulls him out, finishes him off, chops the body into pieces, boils them, and then sends them down the sewer for the swine to eat. Going back to his mother, whom he finds wailing and grieving over what she sees as her son's folly, he upbraids her bitterly for her disloyalty to his dead father, and reveals the purpose behind his seemingly mad behaviour. His words pierce Gerutha's heart and lead her to … [change allegiances].
Feng, on returning to the court, is surprised by the absence of his agent, and asks Amleth, among others, whether he knows what has become of the man. Thereupon the Prince, who always tells the truth after his own riddling fashion, replies that the counsellor went to the sewer, fell in, was stifled by the filth, and then eaten by the pigs. These words, though Feng can make nothing of them, increase his suspicions. He therefore decides that Amleth must be done away with. But he is deterred from taking direct action himself by his fear of offending Rorik, the Prince's grandfather, and of displeasing Gerutha. So he hits on the plan of making the King of England—the time is that of the Danelaw—do his dirty work for him, and sends Amleth off to that country, under the escort of two retainers. The retainers carry a letter with them containing the order that Amleth be put to death on his arrival. Before he sets off, however, the Prince, divining what is likely to happen, has a word in secret with his mother. He asks her to hang the hall with knotted tapestry, and to hold a funeral for him exactly a year after his departure, adding that he will return at the year's end. Then, during the voyage, he searches the luggage of the retainers while they are asleep, finds the letter, which is carved in runic characters on a piece of wood, erases the original order, and replaces it with another of his own devising calling for the execution of the retainers. To it he adds the entreaty that the King of England grant his daughter in marriage to a youth of great judgement whom Feng is sending to him. The plot works. Deeply impressed, as well he might be, by the preternatural acuteness of Amleth's mind ad senses which the Prince amply displays as soon as he reaches England, the King of that country bestows his daughter on the newcomer, and has the retainers hanged. At this point Amleth, pretending to be offended by the summary execution of his companions demands wergeld for them, receives the appropriate sum in gold, melts it down in secret, and pours it into hollow sticks carefully prepared to hold it.
Arriving back in Jutland on the very day when the funeral rites are being carried out for his supposed death, Amleth puts on his old filthy attire, and enters the banqueting hall. At first his coming creates awe; but this soon changes to mirth, especially when, having been asked what has become of the two retainers, he points to the sticks, and says, 'Here they are.' This strange answer confirms the courtiers in their view that he is a harmless lunatic. Nevertheless, to make their assurance doubly sure, Amleth takes one further step. As he moves about the hall, he fidgets with his sword and pricks his fingers with it. To save him from himself, the courtiers have his sword firmly riveted to the scabbard. Secure in their knowledge that the Prince is unarmed as well as harmless, the courtiers allow him to egg them on to eat and drink until they all lie in a drunken stupor. Then, pulling down upon them the knotted hangings prepared by his mother, Amleth uses the barbed crooks he made long ago to fasten the hangings tightly about them, and sets fire to the hall. Thence he moves on to Feng's own apartment, takes the king's sword from the place where it is hanging by his bed, and substitutes his own useless sword for it. Arousing the sleeping Feng, he tells him the hour of vengeance has come. Feng leaps from his couch and seizes the sword hanging by it, but while he tries in vain to wrench it from the scabbard, Amleth kills him with the King's own sword. On the following day the Prince makes a speech to his countrymen, explaining what he has done and why he has done it. They greet the speech with unrestrained enthusiasm, and make Amleth their new king.
Saxo does not conclude his story here. He goes on to relate further exploits of Amleth—some of them very like his earlier exploits—down to his death in battle. In the course of them Amleth acquires a second wife; and she, after expressing her undying devotion to him and her determination to die in battle with him, promptly marries his conqueror.
Francois de Belleforest, Histoires tragiques, vol 5 (1570)
Summaries of the narrative told by Saxo Grammaticus are ubiquitous in the scholarly literature on Shakespeare's Hamlet. Here is the summary provided by G. R. Hibbard, edited as possible to delete interpretative observations directed at Shakespeare's Hamlet (10-11). Geoffrey Bullough provides a standard English translation of Belleforest in Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962).
Belleforest's version of this tale is, in so far as its action goes, in essence the same as Saxo's ... [with] some additions. Three of these are most important. First having related how Fengon, as he calls him, killed his brother, Belleforest goes on to say that before resorting to parricide Fengon had already incestuously sullied his brothers bed ... by corrupting the honour of that brother's wife .... Secondly, Belleforest remarks that Geruthe's subsequent marriage to Fengon led many to conclude that she miht well have inspired the murder in order to enjoy the pleasures of her adulterous relationship with Fengon without restriction or restraint .... Amleth repeats this charge in his passionate harangue to his mother after his discovery of the spy, and draws an absolute denial of it from her. She begs him never to harbour the suspicion that she gave consent to the murder .... Thirdly, Belleforest is much troubled by the powers of divination his hero shows, especially after his arrival in England. Reluctantly he is forced to conclude that in pre-Christian times the North was full of enchanters, and ... that the Prince [had learned magic before his father died]. However, [Belleforest] finds a partial excuse for his hero in the notion that Amleth could well have been rendered highly sensitive to impressions from without [due to being] a victim of melancholy.
The French writer's unease about Amleth's powers of divination is typical of his attitude towards Saxo's story as a whole. He is not happy with it. As a good Christian, he disapproves of private revenge, especially when the object of it is a king; and his reservations on this score lead him into a great deal of special pleading and moralizing. For a solution to his difficulties he falls back on the providential idea of history ... that though God's vengeance may be slow it is absolutely sure.
References to the Play
Nashe, Preface, Menaphon, 1589
Thomas Nashe provided a preface entitled "To the Gentlemen Students of both Uniuersities" to Menaphon by Robert Greene (1589). In that preface, Nashe addressed issues of writing style, in the course of which he said the following:
It is a common practise now a dayes amongst a sort of shifting companions, that runne through euery Art and thriue by none, to leaue the trade of Nouerint, whereto they were borne, and busie themselues with the indeuours of Art that could scarcely Latinize their neck verse if they should haue need; yet English Seneca read by Candle-light yeelds many good sentences, as Blood is a begger, and so forth; and if you intreate him faire in a frosty morning, hee will affoord you whole Hamlets, I should say handfuls of Tragicall speeches. But O griefe! Tempus edam rerum, whats that will last alwayes? The Sea exhaled by droppes will in continuance bee drie, and Seneca, let blood line by line and page by page, at length must needes die to our Stage; which makes his famished followers to imitate the Kid in Æsop, who, enamoured with the Foxes newfangles, forsook all hopes of life to leape into a newe occupation; and these men, renouncing all possibilities of credite or estimation, to intermeddle with Italian Translations: Wherein how poorely they haue plodded, (as those that are neither prouenzall men, nor are able to distinguish of Articles,) let all indifferent Gentlemen that haue trauelled in that tongue discerne by their two-pennie Pamphlets. (McKerrow, 3.315-16) (EEBO)
Lodge, Wits Miserie, 1596
In Wits Miserie, Thomas Lodge provides a taxonomy of "the Deuils Incarnat of this Age," as his sub-title advertises. He names Hate-Vertue as one of Beelzebub's descendants, and the description of this devil includes the following:
… And though this fiend be begotten of his fathers own blood, yet is he different frõ his nature, & were he not sure yt IEALOUSIE could not make him a cuckold, he had long since published him for a bastard: you shall know him by this, he is a foule lubber, his tongue tipt with lying, his heart stéeld against charity, he walks for the most part in black vnder colour of gravity, & looks as pale as the Visard of ye ghost which cried so miserally at ye Theator like an oister wife, Hamlet, reuenge: … (Gosse, 4.62) (EEBO)
Critical Commentary
Authorship and Date
The debate about authorship addresses two candidates primarily: Thomas Kyd and William Shakespeare. The evidence concerns the date of the "Ur-Hamlet," the meaning of selected words and phrases in Nashe's reference to it, and the arguments of scholars on related matters including the relationship of the "Ur-Hamlet" to the German text, Der Bestrafte Brudermord and Q1 of Hamlet (1603). Virtually every commentator on Kyd and Shakespeare's Hamlets has expressed an opinion on the authorship of the "Ur-Hamlet"; here, the purpose is to provide a sample that marks the progress of the debate since the turn of the twentieth century.
Thomas Kyd
The most popular position of scholars is that Thomas Kyd wrote the "Ur-Hamlet." The key is a reading of Nashe's allusions to "Nouerint" and "Kid in 'Æsop'" as specific to Kyd, whom Nashe means further to identify as the sole author of the "Tragicall speeches" in those "whole Hamlets."
Boas is confident that the "Ur-Hamlet was written by Kyd, probably in the latter part of 1587, and resembled The Spanish Tragedie in style and technique" (liii). He is convinced by the references to "the Kid in Æsop," the trade of scrivener ("Nouerint"), and the backhanded mention of Seneca and translations that Nashe meant to identify Kyd as the author of the "Ur-Hamlet." Rejecting the German text called Der Bestrafte Brudermord as an influence on Kyd's play (xlviii), Boas sees much of the "Ur-Hamlet" in the first quarto of Hamlet (1603), especially in "the blank verse in the three later Acts [which] is ... unmistakably pre-Shakespearean" (xlix). To bridge the transition from Kyd's "Ur-Hamlet" to Shakespeare's reworking, Boas invents another stage in textual composition: Kyd's play "underwent, in manuscript form, a certain amount of adaptation to suit the rapid changes of popular taste, or the circumstances of different companies [so that] when Shakespeare ... began to remodel the kindred Ur-Hamlet, he would appear to have had as his basis, not Kyd's play in its primitive form, but a popularized stage version of it" (liii). (Internet Archive)
Editors of Hamlet have supported the authorship by Kyd, with caveats that do not lead to Shakespeare as an alternative. J. Dover Wilson is considered a bellwether. Setting aside his earlier skepticism, he embraced Nashe's "Kid" reference as "a deliberate fake" in order to "hit at Kyd" and thereby indicate in his punning way that "a Danish tragedy on the Hamlet theme by Thomas Kyd was the talk of London in 1589" (xix). Harold Jenkins follows suit; he acknowledges that Nashe is alluding to "a class of writers" but prefers the popular interpretation that Nashe has in mind "one practitioner" (84, 83). Jenkins prefers an earlier date for the Ur-Hamlet" than for The Spanish Tragedy, but he is not specific about what that date might be (97). In comparison with Jenkins's fulsome defense of Kyd as author of the "Ur-Hamlet," Hibbard is cautious, characterizing the debate as "a long drawn out and inconclusive conflict between those who hold that [Nashe's references] identify Thomas Kyd as the author of the Ur-Hamlet and those who think they do not" (13).
Erne concentrates on Nashe's reference to "intermeddle with Italian Translations" and "two-pennie Pamphlets" as the key that identifies Kyd as the author of the "Ur-Hamlet" (147-50). Not concerned with arguments of Shakespearean authorship, Erne is countering an opinion on authorship represented by Ronald McKerrow that Nashe is talking about a group of writers, not a single one (McKerrow, IV.451). Erne dates the "Ur-Hamlet" c. 1588-9, and he points out a possible topicality in the recent murder of Lord Darnley, which was recalled in a Latin poem in 1587 that featured the appearance of Darnley's ghost to "his son James VI" (147, 154).
William Shakespeare
In order to support an author other than Kyd for the "Ur-Hamlet," scholars have first had to deconstruct the Nashe allusions to "Nouerint" and "Kid in 'Æsop'"; then they have had to combat the argument that Nashe uses "whole Hamlets" as an example of what a group of non-university writers do (not one writer specifically).
Duthie
Honigmann, citing Duthie as authority that Kyd was not necessarily Nashe's target, decides that Nashe includes enough non-Kydian references and jumps too "suddenly from one writer to another" for him to be taken as providing a "valid clue for the authorship of the old Hamlet (299). He then argues by way of an elaborate set of connections between Nashe and Greene's Groatsworth of Wit (1592) that Shakespeare was the author of the "Ur-Hamlet":
When we ... remember that Hamlet must have been the work of a non-University writer, that the writers of this class with sufficient reputation to call forth jealousy were very few in number—and that Shakespeare can be associated with Hamlet at a later date, that Shakespeare was named by Greene as the leader of the enemy in 1592, and that Shakespeare was attacked in 1592 as the author of Hamlet was in 1589—then the Groats-Worth echoes of Nashe seem to be most easily explained by the conjecture that the same man was being attacked on both occasions, and that that man (Shakespeare) wrote the Hamlet of 1589" (300).
Sams is not an easy scholar to summarize (pace his own attempt on the "Ur-Hamlet" in The Real Shakespeare: Retrieving the Early Years, 1564-1594 [pp. 120-24]). The more original points of his argument for Shakespearean authorship of the "Ur-Hamlet" are presented here: (1) the early years of Shakespearean authorship, (2) significances of the name, "Hamlet"; (3) reinterpretations of Nashe's references; (4) Gabriel Harvey's marginalia; (5) serial revision as playhouse practice.
- 1. when did Shakespeare start writing plays? Sams endorses an early start for Shakespeare with more ferocity than his scholarly colleagues except possibly E. A. J. Honigmann.
- 2. what's in the name, "Hamlet"?
- 3. who was Nashe pointing to?
- 4. when did Harvey annotate his edition of Speght's Chaucer?
- 5. what happens to texts as they move in time through the hands of changing player organizations?
Relation to Q1
No Relation
Duthie
faint relationship: Boas: "the First Quarto of the Shakespearean Hamlet ... reproduces ... at least the broad outlines of the earlier play on the subject [i.e., the "Ur-Hamlet"]" (xlvii).
"Fossils" of "Ur-Hamlet" in Q1
Wilson
Menzer
"Ur-Hamlet" as earliest version of Hamlet as it evolves through Q1
Sams
Marino
Robertson
Urkowitz
Projected Content
A popular academic game has been to guess at the nature of the "Ur-Hamlet" by way of the Hamlets published in 1603, 1604-5, and 1623. Scholars have projected backwards elements of narrative, structure, and style, turning it into a dumping grounds for whatever they find problematic in the extant Hamlets. Indeed, it is commonplace for scholars to declare that contemporaries (as illustrated by Nashe and Lodge) found the "Ur-Hamlet" "rather ridiculous" (Hibbard, 13) and "famous for so long that it had become a joke" (Marino 75).
Boas: "the play seems to have been in blank verse" (xlv)
Morgan
Gray
Sams
Smith
For What It's Worth
In Satiromastix (Q1602), Thomas Dekker has Tucca, the blowhard captain whose speech is a patois of theatrical allusions, address Asinius Bubo (Horace-Jonson's creature) with the following line: "My name's Hamlet reuenge: —thou hast been at Parris garden hast not?" (Bowers, Vol. 1; IV.i.121). Since Shakespeare's Hamlet might have been on the stage when Dekker composed the line, it is not possible to determine how many layers the allusion has. At least three are likely: the "Ur-Hamlet," as indicated by the phrase, "Hamlet revenge," which Lodge's allusion made famous; Shakespeare's Hamlet, which by many chronologies was on stage at the Globe, c. 1601; and the precinct of the Swan playhouse (Paris Garden), a venue Tucca ribs Horace-Jonson about having graced in references to The Spanish Tragedy and "The Isle of Dogs" (Bowers, I; IV.i.131-6.
Works Cited
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