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)
| ye 9 of June 1594 | ………. | Res at hamlet | ………. | viijs |
Theatrical Provenance
A London venue c. 1589
Newington 1594
The Theater in Shoreditch c. 1596
Probable Genre(s)
Tragedy
Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues
1514: Saxo Grammaticus, Danorum regum heroumque historiae
1570: Francois de Belleforest, Histoires tragiques, vol 5
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. In the section on Beelzebub, Lodge names Hate-Vertue as one of his descendants, and his 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
Relation to Q1
Projected Content
For What It's Worth
Works Cited
Site created and maintained by Roslyn L. Knutson, Professor of English, Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; created 19 November 2012; updated DD Month YYYY.