Hamlet

Anon. (1589?, 1594)

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 Hamlet preserved in Q1 (1603).

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 Genlemen 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)

Lodge, Wits Miserie, 1596

(EEBO)

Works Cited

Boas
Erne
Honigmann
Malone
Menzer
Robertson
Sams
Smith
Urkowitz

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.