Page 127 - Shakespeare in the Movie From the Silent Era to Shakespeare in Love

116 / Shakespeare in the Movies

In 1597, a rival company revived Thomas Kyd's Spanish Tragedy,
and the public loved all the blood and violence in this tale of
revenge. Burbage suggested that Shakespeare find material for a sim-
ilar production. Whether Will recalled seeing Thomas Kyd's unmem-
orable Hamlet or discovered the tale during his own reading is
debatable. Hamlet was by this time well known, already in the
process of passing from folk fable into myth. The story can be traced
back to the ninth-century oral tradition. When Saxo Grammaticus
wrote Historia Danica (approximate date, 1189), he included a char-
acter named Amlethus of Elsinore. The ending was epic, as Prince
Amelthus dispensed with his uncle and ascended to the throne.
Some four hundred years later, French scribe Belleforest translated
this story, opting for a sad finale due to the organizing principle of
his anthology, which was called Histoires Tragiques.
Kyd most likely drew on Belleforest's volume, adding the play
within a play, the battle with Laertes, and the arrival of Fortinbras,
prince of nearby Norway, who restores order. Such elements con-
tributed to the theatricality, allowing this crude version to succeed
with a rowdy Elizabethan audience, but Kyd's poetry was uninspired,
and his characterizations were simplistic. What Shakespeare
achieved with such seemingly unrewarding material was thus all the
more remarkable.
Indeed, the Bard did such a beautiful job that a "problem" led to
heated debate during the following centuries. Hamlet has the oppor-
tunity to kill King Claudius early in the play, but he refrains from
avenging his murdered father. This lack of action seemed implausi-
ble to audiences and critics in a character supposedly bent on
revenge. Shakespeare himself offered an explanation that was con-
sistent with his worldview: Like all his heroes (other than the
notable exception, Macbeth), Hamlet wants to do the right thing
even when it's difficult to discern what that may be. So Hamlet may
mean precisely what he says: He doesn't kill the king when he
believes Claudius is praying, since the hated enemy's soul would go
to heaven. As Shakespeare's creation came to seem like more of a
real man than a literary figure, critics (particularly during the early
nineteenth century) attempted to determine the real reason Hamlet
delays. In so doing, they re-created Hamlet in their own image.
To be fair, there is a justification for their notion of a problem.
Shortly after Hamlet confronts the spiritual incarnation of his father,
he assures best friend Horatio: "It is a true ghost." If he's certain,