Sources of Hamlet

Definition
The term “Sources of Hamlet” refers to the body of earlier literary, historical, and oral materials that are believed to have informed William Shakespeare’s creation of the tragedy Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Scholars identify these antecedents to trace the play’s narrative origins, thematic development, and character archetypes.

Overview
The most widely accepted sources for Shakespeare’s Hamlet include:

1. Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum (c. 1200) – A Latin chronicle of Danish history containing the legend of Amleth, a prince who feigns madness to avenge his father’s murder. The core plot elements—feigned insanity, a ghost urging revenge, and a treacherous uncle—parallel Shakespeare’s drama.
2. The Ur‑Hamlet (late 16th century, now lost) – A now‑extinct play, referenced by contemporaries such as Thomas Nashe and Thomas Kyd, that reportedly presented a version of the Hamlet story predating Shakespeare’s. Its existence is inferred from literary references and the similarity of certain passages in Hamlet to known works.
3. The Story of Hamlet in the Chronicon of Petrus Riga (c. 1140) – A medieval French verse chronicle that retells the Amleth legend, providing additional details about the characters and events.
4. François de Belleforest’s Histoires Tragiques (1576) – A French translation and adaptation of Saxo’s narrative, which includes a dramatized version of Amleth’s tale.
5. The Play of the Prince of Denmark (anonymous, 1580s–1590s) – A fragmentary text discovered among the “bad quartos” of early modern drama, containing scenes and lines that overlap with Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

These sources, together with classical tragedy conventions, Elizabethan drama practices, and contemporary political concerns, contributed to the composite work that emerged as Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Etymology/Origin
The phrase “Sources of Hamlet” combines the English noun sources, denoting origins or antecedent texts, with the proper name Hamlet, the title character of Shakespeare’s tragedy. The terminology arose in early 20th‑century literary scholarship as critics sought to map the play’s intertextual heritage. Notable early usage appears in A. C. B. Coutts’s 1902 article “The Sources of Hamlet,” which explicitly listed Saxo’s Gesta Danorum as a primary model.

Characteristics

• Narrative Parallels – Most sources provide the fundamental storyline: a prince discovers his father’s murder, encounters a ghost, contemplates revenge, and adopts a façade of insanity.
• Variations in Motive and Tone – While Saxon and French versions emphasize moral and political dimensions, the Ur‑Hamlet is thought to have introduced more comedic elements that Shakespeare later subdued.
• Linguistic Transmission – The sources appear in Latin, Old Norse, French, and early modern English, reflecting the multilingual transmission of the Amleth legend across Europe.
• Textual Influence – Direct quotations and structural borrowings are evident, such as the “To be, or not to be” soliloquy’s philosophical rumination, which aligns with Renaissance humanist discourse rather than any single predecessor.
• Scholarly Debate – The exact degree of reliance on each source remains contested; some scholars argue for a primarily original composition by Shakespeare, while others emphasize the cumulative impact of the antecedent texts.

Related Topics

• Hamlet (play) – Shakespeare’s tragedy itself.
• Shakespeare’s sources – General study of the antecedent works used by Shakespeare across his canon.
• Gesta Danorum – Saxo Grammaticus’s historical work containing the Amleth legend.
• Ur‑Hamlet – The hypothesized lost predecessor to Shakespeare’s play.
• Elizabethan drama – The theatrical context in which Hamlet was written and performed.
• Intertextuality in literature – The broader field examining how texts reference and transform earlier works.