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 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

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. odds are that it was also 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.

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 y^t 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 y^e ghost which cried so miserally at y^e Theator like an oister wife, Hamlet, reuenge: … (Gosse, 4.62) (EEBO)

Works Cited

Boas

Erne, Lukas. Beyond The Spanish Tragedy: A Study of the Works of Thomas Kyd. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001.

Gosse, Edmund, ed. The Complete Works of Thomas Lodge. 4 vols. Glasgow, The Hunterian Club, 1883. (Vol. 4)

Gray, Henry David. "Reconstruction of a lost play." Philological Quarterly, 7 (1928): 254-74.

Honigmann, E. A. J. "Shakespeare's 'Lost Source-Plays'," The Modern Language Review, 49.3 (1954): 293-307.

Malone

Marino

McKerrow, Ronald B., ed. The Works of Thomas Nashe. 5 vols. London: A. H. Bullen, 1905. (Internet Archive)

Menzer, Paul. The Hamlets Cues, Qs, and Remembered Texts. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2008.

Morgan, Appleton (intr.). Hamlet and the Ur-Hamlet. New York: The Shakespeare Society of New York, 1908.

Robertson

Sams, Eric. "Taboo or Not Taboo? The Text, Dating and Authorship of Hamlet, 1589-1623." Hamlet Studies, 10 (1988): 12-46.

Smith, Emma. "Ghost Writing; Hamlet and the Ur-Hamlet" in Andrew Murphy (ed.), The Renaissance Text: Theory, Editing, and Textuality. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. 177-90.

Urkowitz

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