Source of Hamlet
Caius Marcius
Delaney) writes:
>
>1) Nobody knows. Either an earlier play based on the Hamlet story, or
>Belleforest's "Histoires Tragiques" which was a contemporary version
>of the third possibility, Saxo Grammaticus' story of Amleth in his
>"Historae Danica". Some people think that Shakespeare read a verson of
>Belleforest which was translated into English.
>2) A story, which might possibly have had a historical source.
>3) The First Quarto of Hamlet, which is generally assumed to be based
>on an acted version, was published in 1603.
There's also an apocryphal lost version of Hamlet which is usually
attributed to Thomas Kyd. (Henslowe's diary refers to a performance of
Hamlet on June 11, 1594). If Kyd dramatized Hamlet, Shakespeare would
very likely have been familiar with it.
- CMC
volker multhopp
> There's also an apocryphal lost version of Hamlet which is usually
> attributed to Thomas Kyd. (Henslowe's diary refers to a performance of
> Hamlet on June 11, 1594). If Kyd dramatized Hamlet, Shakespeare would
> very likely have been familiar with it.
That Kyd wrote the Ur-Hamlet is another bit of Stat mythology. From
the record, maybe he did, but the evidence is not good.
Nashe wrote a preface, *Epistle to the Gentlemen Students of Both
Universities*, to a R Greene novel dated 1589. In it he says, "Yet
English *Seneca* read by candle light yields many good sentences, as
*Blood is a beggar*, and so forth; and if you entreat him fair in a
frosty morning, he will afford you whole *Hamlets*, I should say
handfuls of tragical speeches."
Now, it might well be that the English Seneca is Kyd, but the sentence
doesn't say this Seneca wrote the Ur-Hamlet. The sentence only tells us
that *Hamlet* was already very well known, that it was already the
archetypical English tragedy. It was so well known that it could used
as a synonym for a source of tragic speeches.
--Volker
Dave Kathman
>
> Caius Marcius wrote:
>
> > There's also an apocryphal lost version of Hamlet which is usually
> > attributed to Thomas Kyd. (Henslowe's diary refers to a performance of
> > Hamlet on June 11, 1594). If Kyd dramatized Hamlet, Shakespeare would
> > very likely have been familiar with it.
>
> That Kyd wrote the Ur-Hamlet is another bit of Stat mythology. From
> the record, maybe he did, but the evidence is not good.
I would hardly call it "Strat mythology", but I would agree that the
evidence falls far short of being conclusive -- in fact, it's been
questioned by many prominent Shakespeareans.
> Nashe wrote a preface, *Epistle to the Gentlemen Students of Both
> Universities*, to a R Greene novel dated 1589. In it he says, "Yet
> English *Seneca* read by candle light yields many good sentences, as
> *Blood is a beggar*, and so forth; and if you entreat him fair in a
> frosty morning, he will afford you whole *Hamlets*, I should say
> handfuls of tragical speeches."
>
> Now, it might well be that the English Seneca is Kyd, but the sentence
> doesn't say this Seneca wrote the Ur-Hamlet. The sentence only tells us
> that *Hamlet* was already very well known, that it was already the
> archetypical English tragedy. It was so well known that it could used
> as a synonym for a source of tragic speeches.
The sentence you've quoted is only a portion of the evidence in Nashe's
epistle. Here is a fuller version of the relevant passages:
"It is a common practice nowadays amongst a sort of shifting
companions, that run through every art and thrive by none, to
leave the trade of Noverint, whereto they were born, and busy
themselves with the endeavours of art, that could scarcely
Latinize their neck-verses if they should have need; yet English
Seneca read by candle-light yields many good sentences, as
"Blood is a beggar", and so forth; and if you entreat him fair
in a frosty morning, he will afford you whole Hamlets, I should
say handfuls of tragical speeches. But... Seneca, let blood
line by line and page by page, at length must needs die to our
stage; which makes his famished followers to imitate the Kidde
in Aesop, who enamoured of the fox's newfangles, forsook all
hopes of life to leap into a new occupation; and these men,
renouncing all possibilities of credit or estimation, to
intermeddle with Italian translations..."
This passage seems to be attacking, in the oblique way used by
Elizabethan pamphleteers, a person with the following characteristics:
1) He was born to the trade of "Noverint", or scrivener;
2) He had limited classical education ("could scarcely Latinize
their neck-verse if they had need");
3) He had written English work reminiscent of Seneca;
4) He had "intermeddle[d] with Italian translations".
There's also the seemingly gratiutous reference to "the Kidde
in Aesop", as well as the reference to "whole Hamlets" that is
at issue. Now, Thomas Kyd had the following characteristics:
1) His father was a scrivener, thus Thomas was "born to" that
profession;
2) He did not attend a university, unlike all the other major
playwrights of the late 1580s;
3) He translated the Senecan tragedy "Cornelia" into English
from Robert Garnier's French (to be fair, this was not published
until 1594, but it could have been written earlier, and Kyd
may have written other similar works which have not survived);
4) In 1588, the year before Nashe's epistle, he published
a translation from Italian to English of Tasso's *Householder's
Philosophy*.
Kyd thus matches up in several notable respects with the person
Nashe appears to be attacking (though there is certainly room
for argument). Combine this with the fact that Kyd's *Spanish
Tragedy* is similar in many ways to *Hamlet*, along with Nashe's
oblique mention of the person he is attacking "afford[ing]
you whole Hamlets, I should say tragical speeches", and many
people have concluded that Nashe is attacking Kyd, and that Kyd
was the author of a play on Hamlet. Now, I'll be the first to
admit that the evidence is ambiguous and open to various
interpretations.
For example, one might agree that Nashe is attacking Kyd without
necessarily agreeing that Kyd was the author of *Hamlet*;
perhaps there was a *Hamlet* written by somebody else, and Nashe
is just using it as an illustration of the type of verse written
by the person he's attacking. I think the case for Kyd as the
object of Nashe's scorn is pretty good, though the case for Kyd
as the author of *Hamlet* is less secure, and has been taken as
open to doubt by many scholars, such as E.K. Chambers and Harold
Jenkins.
Dave Kathman
dj...@ix.netcom.com