Why has this one tragedy become the archetypal Shakespeare play in modern times? Although

met with success when it was first performed, it was rarely regarded as Shakespeare's most note-worthy play in the late-sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and many readers found it deeply flawed: as Abraham Wright put it in the 1630s, Hamlet was “an indifferent play, the lines but mean”. The story of death and intrigue at the Danish court was not new – as with nearly all of Shakespeare's plays,

was adapted from other sources. The Norse folk tale of Amleth – recorded by the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus (c.1200), the French writer Belleforest in

(1559-80), and in an anonymous play (now lost) provisionally called the

(c.1580s?) – provided…

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Citation: Roberts, Sasha. "Hamlet". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 June 2002; last revised 10 September 2019. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4833, accessed 26 November 2024.]

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