Amlethus - Belleforest's Tragedies

Belleforest's Tragedies

The story of Hamlet was known to the Elizabethans in François de Belleforest's Histoires tragiques (1570); an English version, The Hystorie of Hamblet was published in 1608. That as early as 1587 or 1589 Hamlet had appeared on the English stage is shown by Nashe's preface to Greene's Menaphon (see: Ur-Hamlet). The Shakespearean Hamlet owes, however, but the outline of his story to Saxo. In character he is diametrically opposed to his prototype. Amleth's madness was certainly altogether feigned; he prepared his vengeance a year beforehand, and carried it out deliberately and ruthlessly at every point. His riddling speech has little more than an outward similarity to the words of Hamlet, who resembles him, however, in his disconcerting penetration into his enemies' plans.