Billy or Kyd's Hamlet

[wood jim]

http://www.columbia.edu/~fs10/hamblet.htm



http://www.columbia.edu/~fs10/hamlet~1.htm

Although there is "no evidence requiring us to
believe" that Shakespeare
    consulted any other source than the Ur-Hamlet of
Kyd, to assume that he did
    not would identify any element in the Shakespeare
play not derived from Kyd
    as the work of Shakespeare's own imagination. We
must then attribute to him
    insights into universal human psychology which may
actually be encoded into
    an ancient oral folk-tradition of which
Shakespeare made as much use as of
    the Ur-Hamlet. Gollancz's account makes it appear
likely that an oral tradition
    was familiar both to the Elizabethan Londoners and
to those in the countryside
    where Hamlet is believed to have been performed.

According to the
    critical theory of Harold Bloom, "every poem is a
misinterpretation of a parent
    poem" (AI 94) However, he says in Kabbalah and
Criticism that "the
    fundamental phenomena of poetic influence have
little to do with the
    borrowings of images or ideas, with
sound-patterns, or with other verbal
    reminders of one poem by another. A poem is a deep
misprision of a previous
    poem when we recognize the later poem as being
absent rather than present
    on the surface of the earlier poem, and yet still
being in the earlier poem,
    implicit or hidden in it, not yet manifest, and
yet there. (KC 66). Elsewhere
    Bloom states that the parent poem may even be one
that the present poet has
    not read. Whether or not Bloom would accept Kyd's
Ur-Hamlet as being
    Shakespeare's parent poem, he would argue that a
single parent-phoenix must
    exist.     He distinguishes his critical method
from traditional source studies by
    focusing it upon the psychology of the poet rather
than upon the structural
    elements of the work; however even traditional
source studies, although often
    exploring a wide range of textual predecessors,
imply a chronological chain of
    influence. 


Evidence exists of an oral Hamlet tradition
contemporary with Shakespeare:
    In Professor Joseph Wright's Dialect Dictionary,
we find duly recorded the
    Yorkshire phrase to play Hamlet with, to play "the
deuce" with; to give one a
    "good blowing up," e.g. "Mi muðe plead amlit wi im
fa stopin at lat et nit,: i.e.
    "my mother played Hamlet with him for stopping out
late at night. (Gollancz
    314) While this expression was noted in modern
times, Gollancz believes it to
    date back to ancient traditions. Furthermore, we
learn from Albert Cohn
    (1817) that the actors Thomas Pope and George
Bryan left the service of the
    Danish King, Frederick II in 1586, and later
joined Shakespeare's company
    (they are included in the list of actors in the
first folio) (Furness 115). If not
    constituting proof, this circumstance at least
suggests the possibility of
    familiarity with the most ancient Hamlet tradition
by collaborators in the
    construction of Shakespeare's play.




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