The Value of Source Study of Hamlet by Shakespeare Explicatory Essay

Introduction

The content of this essay revolves around the Hamlet play staged and sensationalized by William Shakespeare. With substantial reference to varied sources, the prodigy hatched a theatrical drama piece of Hamlet, depicting a code of revenge, patricide, tragedy, and regicide (Sanchez 21).

This paper bears significant valuation for the sources that Shakespeare alluded to in the production of this play. Sanchez attests that he studied previous works and literature of preeminent playwrights persistently fixating on Francois Belleforest borrowing insightful chapters and verses (1).

Belleforest’s work is a replication of Saxo Grammaticus’s Danish legend on Amleth, accompanied with a selection of changes (Sanchez 7). Shakespeare still made some alterations in his adaptations to empower his performance, regardless of character references and tributes.

This essay seeks to delineate these alterations and, over and above that, explain their instrumental significance. This article starts by narrating Hamlet’s story then outlines Shakespeare’s modifications mainly by way of character analysis and the language borrowed.

Body

Background Facts: Shakespeare’s Literature of Hamlet

Hamlet is a fiction plot with a premise that convenes tragedy and revenge within the Elsinore Castle, in the Kingdom of Denmark (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 3). The fortress summons Prince Hamlet, the protagonist, home from Germany to grace his father’s funeral with his presence.

On arrival, the Prince gets wind of the marriage between his mother, Gertrude, and his uncle, Claudius, which agitates him. He fathoms foul play and attests his suspicions through an epiphany by his father’s ghost that appears to him recounting how Claudius murdered him in his nap.

The Ghost taxes Hamlet to compensate his death by killing his executioner, Claudius, to be at ease. However, Hamlet is somewhat unsure of the ghost’s credibility and decides to engage a troupe of players to stage a play called The Murder of Gonzago to affirm his notion.

The tactic is so successful that it strikes Claudius’ conscience; he is remorseful and leaves to pray and ask for cleansing (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 4).

The affirmation of the stage play rekindles the intense passion for vengeance and retribution within Hamlet for his father’s death (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 5).

This vengeance, however, is all words but no action, and as the prince contemplates on how to achieve revenge, he instigates six ancillary deaths within the palace.

According to Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare (5), Hamlet first stabs Polonius, the king’s chief counselor, who was eavesdropping on a conversation between the Prince and the Queen behind the tapestry.

The next victims are Hamlet’s schoolmates, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern, whose demise Hamlet himself arranges by instructing the King of England to hang the two (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 6).

Ophelia, tormented by Polonius’ decease and Hamlet’s antic disposition, drowns while singing bawdy melodies, lamenting over her spurned lover (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 6).

Next is Laertes, Ophelia’s sister, who declares to finish off Hamlet, as he is entirely responsible for both his father and sister’s demise. Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare assert that Laertes, in consultation with Claudius, concocts various strategies to kill the Prince, one of them being a ‘fencing match’ (7).

In the course of the contest, Laertes uses a poisoned sword blade to maim the Prince but releases it after that. Hamlet sees an opening here to reciprocate the attack by Laertes and, therefore, collects the same blade; he uses it to impale his adversary.

In a show of victory, the queen drinks from a contaminated glass of wine that Claudius had specially prepared and poisoned for Hamlet (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 8).

The toxic substance kills her instantly. In an aggravated maneuver, Hamlet grabs the sword, using it to wound Claudius in concurrence with forcing the wine down his throat, in light of Gertrude’s demise.

After that, he announces that Prince Fortinbras should rule over Denmark’s throne. He also advocates his friend, Horatio, to retell the preceding events, after which he relinquishes life (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 9). In reverence, Fortinbras secures Hamlet’s burial procession withal full military honors.

What Changes Has Shakespeare Made to the Archetype Work of Amleth?

I have researched that Shakespeare evidently altered some descriptions here and there to personalize Hamlet from looking through Nash’s book, Christ Tears Over Jerusalem.

Sanchez clarifies that Shakespeare’s plays inferred from preexistent playwrights, tragedians, and dramatists who composed classic pieces of literature (4).

These masterpieces were inclusive of mythologies, folktales, daily life, songs, and history emanating from varied localities such as Greek, Italian, Roman, Germany, and English.

Shakespeare collected and remodeled these works, introducing new viewpoints and ideas to the existent compositions, affirms Sanchez (10). The reforms were all in a bid to create finer plot devices to advance the visual and speculative perceptions altogether.

The Ghost

Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare (7) compare the spirits in the plays of Antonio’s Revenge and Hamlet to elucidate Shakespeare’s variations of King Hamlet’s apparition.

By the exploitation of profound readings and assessment of the two works, Hamlet and Antonio’s Revenge implement the character of a ghost in their explanations (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 9).

The plot in Antonio’s Revenge is fundamentally similar to that of Shakespeare’s Hamlet as it encompasses vindictiveness by a son, whose father’s ghost emerges and commands revenge. Nonetheless, there exist definite divergences in the specters’ properties.

The Significance of The Ghost’s Character Alteration

Andrugio’s ghost materializes before both Antonio- the protagonist- and his mother alike, such that the two can see the specter’s impression in the same way (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 10). Over and above that, this apparition even has a conversation with both Antonio and his mother, Maria.

To Antonio, the ghost has come compelling him to take vengeance on his account, against his murderer, Piero (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 11). On the other hand, Andrugio’s ghost relates to Maria in a rather comical and somewhat haunting way, explain Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare (11).

The play depicts Andrugio’s ghost seating on the edge of Maria’s bed chastising her by way of rebuking her loose ways, seeing that she has already been intimate with the villain.

He proceeds to explain to her that her gender is frail and subsequently soothes her fears. Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare analyze that the gap between the mortal human and the dead narrows down significantly and almost plummets them into one form (9).

This plot device is in contradiction with that of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, as the ghoul does not show itself before Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude.

Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare note that Shakespeare modified the ghost of King Hamlet to only converse with the prince and beseeched him to get the appropriate revenge for his demise (11).

He also points out that the ghoul does not interact directly with the Queen and instead reaches out to her through Hamlet, additionally warning him to care for her as her sex is fragile. In this context, the gap between the supernatural worlds versus the earthly humans remains as vast as it should be.

In regards to the intended significance, Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare report that Shakespeare designed the role of the ghost to appear to Hamlet relentlessly to enhance the melancholy motif of the play (12).

The central theme envisaged revolves around revenge, and the protagonist aims to achieve his vengeance on the villain by faking madness. By slightly changing the scenario, Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare (11) say that Shakespeare succeeded in consummating the original concept of ‘Hero-as-Fool.’

The leading role feigns a deranged character to avoid the rogue from suspecting his motives. By virtue of the ghost emerging incessantly before Hamlet, the rest of the observers, his mother included, believe without a doubt that Hamlet is not mentally right.

The significance of the ghost in Shakespeare’s Hamlet holding conversation with the Prince only, also creates a mood of mystery and confusion (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 12).

The fact that the apparition comes back from Purgatory gives rise to mockery because Protestants such as Hamlet doubt the entire doctrine of the underworld (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 13). This element of disbelief causes the prince to question the ghost’s reliability, thus attaining the aspect of delay in the outline.

Ophelia

Francois Belleforest sketched the individuality of Ophelia in Saxo Grammaticus’ Danish legend, in his very own rendition. Likewise, Shakespeare paints the same character of Ophelia that Polonius and Claudius use as a convenient tool to spy on Hamlet and examine if he was crazy (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 15).

In as much as Shakespeare and Saxo portray Ophelia as the lead character’s mistress, some notable differences surface as expounded below.

The Significance of Ophelia’s Character Alteration

In the Danish legend, Saxo imaged Amleth- the exponent- and Ophelia as foster siblings who shared a very strong likeness to each other.

Their closeness was visible when Feng, the antihero, send Ophelia to observe Amleth, and she declined to reveal any information about him whatsoever (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 16).

After this point, Saxo does not comment on her again in the play and thus, it is not coherent to the audience what befalls her after that.

Secondly, mention is that when Amleth sailed to England, he married Herminthrud, who betrayed him later on. The duplicity and infidelity that Herminthrud inflicted on her husband drove him to detest women and utter profanities about them in general (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 16).

Shakespeare tweaked Saxo’s thesis marginally in various ways, for example; he stated that Ophelia was Hamlet’s sweetheart and not his foster sister (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 17).

Shakespeare employed this strategy to pull off the elements of betrayal by way of guiding Ophelia to betray her lover, Hamlet. In the setting of Hamlet, Ophelia sells out the prince repeatedly when at first; she deserts him under the instructions of Polonius, her father.

The second time is when she reports Hamlet’s questionable behavior towards her, to her father and Claudius as well (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 18).

By her act of disloyalty towards him, he reproves of her conduct and shuns her away to a nunnery (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 17). Her behavior hurts him, and he decides to humiliate her by refusing to wed her and instead calls her a ‘breeder of sinners.’

In light of her treachery, Hamlet becomes more alert to the people around him, more so, the ones he considers as precious and cherished (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 18).

In this setting, Shakespeare brought Ophelia into play to scrutinize Hamlet’s resolve of revenge and feigned madness, as Hamlet trusts her enough to divulge his secrets to her.

Another significance of revising Ophelia’s individuality is visible in Shakespeare’s elimination of Herminthrud in Hamlet. If he included her in the plot, he would have first had to pause and acquaint her to his audience, hence disrupting the flow of the story.

In view of this, he thus observed the rule of flow and coherency in this narration. Unlike Saxo, who described Herminthrud’s character trait, Shakespeare omitted her intentionally to capitalize on the story’s code of revenge by having Hamlet attack Ophelia (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 15).

Ophelia thus serves as a scapegoat and takes the blame for all the female characters’ offenses. In addition, the omission of Herminthrud allowed Shakespeare to justify why Ophelia developed madness.

Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare argue that the unsympathetic attitude that Hamlet brandish on Ophelia only mirrors the contempt Amleth harbored against women (14).

Gertrude

Saxo and Shakespeare both incorporated the character of Geruth and Gertrude respectively as that persona that makes merry with the villain.

This detail is apparent from the plays’ descriptions that both these personalities marry the antiheroes who have just killed their husbands (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 25).

By virtue of their union, they display an indecent show of incest that devastates both their spouses’ specters, as well as their sons. Despite the legends’ striking resemblance, there are several nonconformities in these characters’ distinctive attributes, verifying that Shakespeare reconstructed his version.

The Significance of Gertrude’s Character Alteration

The tale of Amleth presents Geruth as a very mild dignitary who suffered under her former husband’s- King Orvendil- quick temper before his death (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 27).

Her circumstances are so lamentable that her remarriage to Feng calls for deliverance; Saxo sculpts her as Feng’s pushover, whom he forces into marrying him after dispatching her husband, Orvendil.

Later on, her son Amleth berated her to rectify her transgressions of conjugating with the villain, who doubled up as her spouse’s murderer and her brother-in-law. Amleth is successful in his castigations as she repents and vows to help him enact his attack on Feng; Saxo per contra does not cite her again in the play.

By contrast, Shakespeare’s Hamlet is quite the edited restatement of the earlier Amleth legend. Before all else, Shakespeare fails to establish Gertrude’s stand on the regicide issue meted out on King Hamlet, her husband (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 26).

Shakespeare’s indecisive angle enabled him to stage a theatrical aspect of a riddle, as his viewers are inquisitive of whether the queen willingly married Claudius, or he forced her into it. This part of the play also serves as a brainteaser- a quality that is profitable to any play or work of literature.

Along the storytelling, Shakespeare records that Hamlet also rebukes his mother, Gertrude, for coupling with Claudius and more so, allying with the bully.

Shakespeare also included a supplementary section where the Prince exhibited pictures of Claudius to the queen, in an effort to mark out Claudius’ flaws- a feature lacking in the Amleth legend.

Following Hamlet’s admonitions, Gertrude apologizes for her actions and promises him that she will suppress the details of their meeting, never to disclose it to anyone.

Unlike Geruth, Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare (26) remark that Gertrude breaks her promise and confesses the solemn secret to Claudius, her second husband.

There is a valid reason Shakespeare allowed the queen, Gertrude, to break her promise and betray him to Claudius. Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare state that the betrayal served to enlighten why the Prince set sail for England (28).

Hamlet reluctantly embarked on a sea voyage to England, under the king’s strict bidding, as he- Claudius- dreaded that Hamlet was out to kill him. In addition to this, he also required some space and time to account for Polonius’ decease to his children, Ophelia, and Laertes.

Claudius also coerced the prince into exile, as he wanted to scheme a dark and covert plan for killing Hamlet, by drafting letters to the King of England.

Gertrude’s betrayal is thus paramount to the unfolding of affairs in Hamlet’s storyline; Shakespeare demonstrated her imperfect portrait of motherhood (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 24).

Additionally, Shakespeare contradicted Saxo by retaining Gertrude’s character in Hamlet, almost until the end of the narrative, where she died after drinking the contaminated wine.

The author hangs on to her to maximize on the plot and theme of tragedy and a total catastrophe by reporting on her regrettable death (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 24). The passing of the Queen amplified the element of calamity in the genre of tragic stories by resulting in an even more tragic ending.

Hamlet

The Danish legend and Hamlet both reverberate a similar sentiment- that of retaliation and the implementation of an eye for an eye. The playwrights appoint their champions as Amleth and Hamlet indicatively to accomplish a counter play motif (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 29).

In their capacity as the leading role, they execute their assigned duties by way of donning a camouflage of madness to avoid suspicions by their uncles and bring their mission to fruition.

Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare (29) analyze that in their paths for vengeance, they trigger the annihilation of other members of the royalty, either deliberately or not.

Beyond the correspondence between the two tales, Shakespeare still progressed to change some parts to modify Hamlet. Below is an outline of the revisions he made together with their distinct significances.

The Significance of Hamlet’s Character Alteration

In Saxo’s rendition, Amleth first appears at a junior age, such that he is feeble and powerless to take any action upon his father’s regicide. Feng’s deed of eradicating and regarding Orvendil’s regicide, as a deserved performance inspires Amleth to yearn for revenge (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 30).

He formulates a strategically viable approach that he will administer on Feng when he becomes of age. In his laid out plan, he plots to eradicate Feng together with all those nobles that tolerated his uncle’s injustice.

When he finally avenges King Orvendil’s death, Amleth continues to live, taking over the reins of kingship to implement peace in his kingdom (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 31).

In Hamlet, Shakespeare presents Hamlet as a young adult, approximately thirty years, who is still pursuing his university studies in Germany. Unlike Amleth, Hamlet is of age; he is fully able to maneuver and act towards his goal (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 31).

Regardless of his grown-up status, Hamlet is still hesitant to obtain payback; as a result perfecting the delay acts employed as plot devices in Shakespeare’s play.

Shakespeare also circumvents from imaging Hamlet as intentionally conspiring to cause seven other subsidiary deaths encompassing Ophelia, Gertrude, and Laertes (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 32).

Instead, he brings out these deaths as a mere coincidence and a victim of the occurrences at the palace, all in an attempt to magnify the concept of tragedy.

Uncalculated misfortunes are the core of a tragic story; therefore, Shakespeare endears to the expectations of his audience (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 33). Furthermore, the ultimate collapse of the protagonist at the end of the narrative multiplies the effect of adversity.

Fortinbras

The Significance of Fortinbras’ Character Alteration

Fortinbras, the Prince of Norway, is a sovereignty personification that makes an entry in Shakespeare’s Hamlet to take over governance from the ruins encountered in Denmark (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 32). Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare (46) write that Saxo’s report does not feature Fortinbras.

The reason for this omission is that Amleth defeated Feng and his nobles and, therefore, took his rightful capacity as the new king of his empire.

In Hamlet’s production, Shakespeare orchestrates the death of Hamlet to record tragedy at its highest peak, explain Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare (33). The crowning fall of the Prince compelled Shakespeare to usher in a new ruler, Fortinbras, who would reign with utmost justice and peace.

Another cause of incorporating Fortinbras in the play was that Hamlet likened himself to Fortinbras; By virtue of being a Prince, Hamlet qualified him as sufficient to preside over the throne.

Additionally, Fortinbras prevailed under the same state of affairs as Hamlet, and his uncle displaced him as the king yet he, as the prince, was the inheritor of the crown.

The unfortunate event aggravated the Norwegian prince to the point he also seeks revenge on his father’s slayer, provide Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare (34). Given that they experienced the same dilemma, Hamlet advocated for Fortinbras’ appointment to the throne assuming that he would carry out his ambition.

Claudius

Shakespeare ventures to mirror Feng, from the Amleth legend, in his recount of Hamlet by embodying him as Claudius (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 21).

Claudius is a tyrant ruler and traitor; a mannerism perceptible in the way he dispatches his brother, marries his wife and conspires to put his nephew to death. As explained below, Shakespeare still customized Claudius’ character.

The Significance of Claudius’ Character Alteration

In Saxo’s tale, the playwright starts the folk tale by unfolding the details of the ruling history ongoing before Amleth’s tragedy (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 23). He narrates the bitter and tense association between the two co-rulers, Feng, and Orvendil.

When Orvendil triumphs in a war against Koller of Norway and becomes Jutland’s sole leader, Feng becomes jealous and massacres him in quite a scandalous manner. Feng strikes one as a very hard-hearted and unsympathetic figure.

So cruel is he that he makes public his murderous deeds to the absolute court of Jutland then disguises the act by claiming that it was a righteous act (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 22).

By contrast, Shakespeare embarks on the story midway, presenting Hamlet as a full-grown man who is thirty years of age (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 25).

Shakespeare deletes the ruling history of King Hamlet’s reign, thus allocating the readers the task of unraveling whether Claudius and King Hamlet were also joint leaders.

Secondly, Claudius, unlike Feng, does not announce his cause of regicide, thus adding an interesting twist to the play that involves discerning the grounds of the sudden fate of the king.

Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare (22) offer that Shakespeare injects some mystification into the drama piece. Hamlet only becomes aware of the atrocity through the ghost’s divination. Hamlet’s rage and crave for revenge intensify as he now realizes that the death was not accidental.

The Names ‘Amleth’ and ‘Hamlet’

The title of Shakespeare’s drama play is reflective of the protagonist’s name, Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 13). In the course of lifting the name of his titular character from Saxo’s journal, Shakespeare reshuffles and circulates the etymological significance of the heading ‘Amleth.’

He decides to reposition the letter ‘H’ from the end to the beginning of the name, to read as ‘Hamlet’ in place of ‘Amleth.’ Shakespeare is steadfast in the rebirth of the name ‘Hamlet’ to revolutionize and answer to the call of modernity.

The reason for his intended modernization is that he was working in a neoteric period or rather, in the Elizabethan era (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 14). His audience’s generation appealed to developments and reformations of outdated literary works.

Language Borrowed

For a long time, the wide-ranging perception has been that Shakespeare conceived entirely new words and phrases, advances Sanchez (12). The public deduce that he originated most of the terms and expressions used today, thus exalting him as the father of the modern-day language (Sanchez 14).

Sanchez states that this impression is all wrong and even quotes that researchers have disputed this understanding in favor of the reality that Shakespeare merely borrowed terminologies from his predecessors (15).

They argue that he possessed a great skill of acquiring language from earlier poets, novelists, and composers such as Thomas Nash. However, he did not just borrow heedlessly; instead, he transformed their meaning in the context of the texts he was writing. Explained below are two of the terms he adopted in his play, Hamlet.

The Use of the Term ‘Nunnery’ and its Significance

In the making of Hamlet, Shakespeare renovated the meaning of the utterance ‘nunnery.’ A meticulous study of Nash’s Christ’s Tears Over Jerusalem qualifies me to say that Shakespeare repeated the word from the celebrated pamphleteer, Thomas Nash.

Nash first assimilated the ‘nunnery’ expression in his book Christ’s Tears Over Jerusalem to mean an Institute of courtesans and concubines (Nash 19). In Hamlet, Shakespeare slots this term in the phrase “Get thee to a nunnery,” uttered by Hamlet when he advises Ophelia to sign into a convent (Sanchez 32).

Shakespeare utilizes this terminology, but he does not blend it to mean a brothel or bawdyhouse as Nash did. Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare explain that Shakespeare instead projects its literal definition of a religious community (18).

Shakespeare’s aim of changing the meaning is to enable him to make Hamlet urge Ophelia to liberate herself from the fleshly world full of dishonest men. Moreover, Hamlet uses this term while rebuking Ophelia of her betrayal, which he suspects of her (Stopes, Belleforest, and Shakespeare 16).

The Use of the Phrase ‘Mind’s Eye’ and its Significance

A reading of Sanchez (57) reveals that Shakespeare takes on another idiomatic expression from a writer known as Chaucer (1390). The phrase in question here is ‘mind’s eye.’ Chaucer accommodated the set expression in his account, The Man of Law’s Tale, wording it as “It were with thilke eyen of his mynde” (Sanchez 58).

In the negation of Chaucer’s expression, Shakespeare reverses the arrangement and sequence of the statement to appear as “mind’s eye.” Shakespeare integrates this saying in Horatio’s reply when he, together with the castle’s guards, glimpse King Hamlet’s apparition on the palace walls.

“A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye,” cautions Horatio. Sanchez deciphers this to mean that Horatio was warning the guards to acknowledge the ghoul’s appearance (61).

In other terms, he was predicting that its sheer emergence could bring disaster to the castle. Shakespeare applies the word ‘eye’ here to represent the castle and not the conventional meaning of ‘one’s optical memory.’

Conclusion

Despite the fact that he borrowed concepts and models from his predecessors, Shakespeare was a great tragedian himself in devising his plays and drama sets. Sanchez (5) reports that in his play of Hamlet, Shakespeare generously adapts Saxo Grammaticus’ story thesis based on Amleth.

However, he makes some structural changes, primarily in the qualities and traits of his characters among other elements.

He remodels the characters of Hamlet, Ophelia, Claudius, Gertrude, Fortinbras, and the ghost in conjunction with the language borrowed (Sanchez 15). Shakespeare’s revisions are just: he only implemented them to blend with the tendencies affixed in tragic stories (Sanchez 56).

Works Cited

Nash, Thomas. Christ’s Tears Over Jerusalem: Whereunto is Annexed. A Comparative Admonition to London. London: From the Private Press of Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, Printed by T. Davison, 1815. Print.

Sanchez, Isabel 2012, “The Root of the Recycled: A Comparative Analysis of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” and the Mythological “Ur-Hamlet””. Masters thesis, Florida International Univ., 2012. FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Web.

Stopes, Charlotte, Francois Belleforest and William Shakespeare. Why Does Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ Differ from the ‘Amleth’ Story of Belleforest? [From the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, Vol. 33]. London: Adlard & Son, 1914. Print.