Hamlet, a Story for the Ages

Bethany Fisk

Cynthia Balcom, JD

English 101

30 October 2007

“Hamlet,” A Story for the Ages

William Shakespeare’s, “Hamlet,” was based on the semi-histori

cal figure, Amleth. Amleth was introduced through a poem in the 800’s by an Iceland poet named Snaebjorn. The tale of Amleth was made popular by Saxo Grammaticus, who accounted the life of a Danish prince in his history of Denmark, “Gesta Danorum,” in 1185 (Burrow-Flak). It can not be denied that Shakespeare was greatly influenced by Grammaticus’s work. The two tales share an almost identical plot and the characters are interchangeable. However, while Shakespeare reiterated Grammaticus’s saga to the masses, he enriched the story with ideals that would interest his Elizabethan Era audience.

Shakespeare was believed to have wrote, “Hamlet,” in 1601. During the late 1500s and 1600s revenge tragedies became very popular in England. The narrative of Amleth was not short on subject matter involving tragedy, revenge, and jealousy; this surely made Shakespeare take notice. However, Amleth was a story with a lot of brutality and blood but little heart, and this would have not appealed to the evolving humanistic attitude of the Elizabethan era. Shakespeare imparted a soul into his characters who felt remorse for murder and questioned the morality of death and revenge. This can be seen in comparing a pivotal scene in the two plays. In Saxo’s version, Amleth not only killed the eavesdropper (Polonius) but also cut, “his body into morsels, he seethed it in boiling water, and flung it through the mouth of an open sewer for the swine to eat.” (Cook). Heavily in contrast, Shakespeare’s Hamlet feels remorse after the murder of Polonius, as can be seen in his dialogue, “I do repent; but heaven hath pleas’d it so, / To punish me with this, and this with me, / That I must be their scourge and minister” (175-177). Hamlet declared his “repent,” or regret for the murder of Polonius, showing his human, emotional side; something an audience could relate too. Amleth, on the other hand, did not only show no remorse but barbarically mutilated, boiled, and discarded his body in a very sinister way. This would have been considered unjustifiable and brutal behavior to the audience of, “Hamlet,” a character Shakespeare depicted as a heroic man fighting an internal battle of right and wrong.

Another revision Shakespeare made to Grammaticus’s, “Gesta Danorum,” was the addition of supernatural elements. This can be seen in the different ways that Hamlet and Amleth come to know of their father’s murder. Amleth knew all a long that his father was murdered by his uncle but Hamlet, unaware of the murder at the beginning, sees the apparition of his dead father who tells him of his murder. This was definitely a sign of the times; not only did this feed into the excitement and drama Shakespeare’s audience longed for but it also depicts a popular belief of the Elizabethan Era. The Elizabethan Era was the age of the Renaissance, people had a heightened interest in new ideas and new thinking. The new ideas, information and increased knowledge about science, technology and astrology led to a heightened interest in the supernatural (Alchin). In Elizabethan England, ghosts and the idea of them, was a common phenomenon, prompting Shakespeare to add this pivotal twist into his play.

Accompanying the contextual ideals of a humanistic attitude and supernatural beings, Christianity is another aspect of the Elizabethan standards that Shakespeare introduced into his depiction of Amleth. When the fable of Amleth was first introduced in Denmark, Christianity had not yet been adopted (Wilson) and is not something referred to in the original tale. Shakespeare’s, “Hamlet,” on the other hand, reflects the beliefs about sin and damnation that were common to