Historical Significance Behind Hamlet

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“What is the Historical Significance Behind Hamlet?” Hamlet is a play written by the great William Shakespeare. The main character, Hamlet, was a Danish prince whose father had just been killed under mysterious circumstances. To make matters worse, his uncle Claudius, had taken the throne and married Hamlet’s mother Gertrude. The play deals with tragedy, madness, love, and sorrow which makes it one of the greatest plays that Shakespeare has ever written. When reading this play, a fascinating question that comes to mind is the question of whether or not this play is based on historical events. How could this dramatic play actually be based on real people and real events that took place in the olden days? It has been found by scholars who study Shakespeare, that the origins for Hamlet can be traced as far back as an old Danish legend that has been collected by a twelfth-century historian called Saxo Grammaticus. The young man who was the main character in this legend was called Amleth, and the plot for the story includes not only a man which Hamlet could have been based on but people that are similar to Claudius, Gertrude, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, and Guilderstern. The other link was that this legend was translated into French around 1576 and Shakespeare was most likely able to read the French version or have a translation. Works Cited Shakespeare, William. Original Shakespearen Text With a Modern Line-For-Line Translation: Hamlet. 9876. New York: Barron's Educational Series, Inc. , 2002. 16.
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