Last night was Midsummer in the Northern European countries. In my novel the day looms large. The action portrayed in the fifth and final act of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (the denouement of his play and my novel) takes place, as far as I can figure from the Bard’s chronology, on Midsummer.
Here’s an excerpt (p. 299) from Revenge at Elsinore: “Dawn next morn did come for me. It was the twenty-third day of June in the twenty-third year of the century. In Sweden, it was Midsommaraften, the eve of the summer solstice, when the sun began its journey southward toward the girasols of Spain, on which night Swedish maidens gathered flowers to put beneath their pillows in hopes of dreaming of their future husbands, joyous lovers mated to conceive the strong infants of spring, and magic was most powerful.”
In actual historical fact, on Midsommer morn 1523, Gustav Erikkson Vasa rode into Stockholm as King of Sweden. In my fictional conceit, it was the night Prince Hamlet met his death. The real Gustav is Shakespeare’s fictional Fortinbras. Horatio is his historical younger brother Magnus. King Hamlet is Denmark’s King Christian II.
Regardless of my arguments, it’s Mid-Summer, and I salute my Northern brethren.
Faithfully,
John
I ended my last blog with a reference to a work I encountered not long after Revenge At Elsinore was written and published. I came across it on Amazon’s giant website while searching for evidence of my new book. Sten Vedi’s Elsinore Revisited popped up. I peeked “Inside the Cover” to discover a book I wished to acquire and digest.
It was a gratifying read. Vedi’s deft analysis does not directly concern itself with “the lost source of Hamlet” but it supports many of my novelistic conceits. First and foremost, it convincingly establishes the fact that the author (or authors) of Hamlet either had intimate knowledge of the castle at Elsinore or knew Englishmen who did.
Long ago, the august J. Dover Wilson proclaimed it “an absurdity” to think that Shakespeare knew or cared anything about distant lands or their recent histories. According to him, it was all about England. Denmark? Italy? Just made-up local color. According to JDW, the Bard could care less.
Contrary to the capricious pontifications of old-school scholars whose verdicts held sway just before the vast academic industry of Shakespearian scholarship took hold, we now have positive knowledge that the author(s) of Hamlet was (were) well acquainted with Danish history, culture and customs.
And, since this view is now a reigning paradigm, I find it doubtful that “Shakespeare” had no knowledge of the major episode of Danish history that transpired in the generation or two before him: The Bloodbath of Stockholm in 1520 and the consequent defenestration of the Danish King Christian II (i.e. King Hamlet) in 1523 . (Do you, dear reader, know nothing about the U.S. war in Vietnam?)
My belief is that “Shakespeare” knew this story. If “he” did, “he” could not tell it outright on stage. The story was critical of Denmark at a time when Queen Elizabeth was courting Denmark. Criticism of the Danes was then a big “no-no” with the chief censor, the Master of Revels.
And so “Shakespeare” embedded the story within a well-worn and theatrically popular genre of “revenge tragedies.”
My novel, Revenge At Elsinore, extracts the hidden tale, so cleverly concealed on stage and so clearly visible in the text. I believe it’s actually a better yarn than the material with which “Shakespeare” was publicly prompted to work.
Scholars agree that three major literary/historical sources inform the plot of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. They can identify two. The first is a twelfth-century account by Saxo Grammaticus in his Historica Danica of the legend of Amleth, a Danish avenger—first printed in Latin in 1514. Much of the plot of Shakespeare’s play follows that story. It’s unlikely that Shakespeare was familiar with Saxo’s chronicle; there’s no know English translation before or during the Bard’s lifetime.
The second source is closer to home: a retelling of Saxo’s tale by François de Belleforest in his Histoiries Tragiques, first published in French in 1570. Same story; new wrinkles. Many Shakespeare scholars reasonably assume the Bard’s familiarity with Belleforest’s version of his Hamlet story, even though its first English edition was not published until five years after the first edition of Shakespeare’s Hamlet appeared. (In an ironic twist, recent scholarship has suggested that—far from being the source of Shakespeare’s play—Belleforest’s English edition may have borrowed from the first published version of Shakespeare’s play.)
Ultimately, it seems, it doesn’t matter. For, in fact, scholars largely agree that the immediate inspiration for Shakespeare’s Hamlet was its third source, the unknown “Ur-Hamlet,” a play most probably written by Thomas Kyd, staged in the late 1580s or early 1590s, and lost to posterity. In quest of the third source, generations of academic sleuths have marshaled sage surmise, hewed intuition and imaginative exploitation of the occasional reclusive fact. Alas, to no avail. In the authoritative foreword to the Norton edition of Hamlet, editor Cyrus Hoy concludes that “no amount of conjecture—clever and elaborate though much of it has been—can conceal the fact that the lost play is lost.”
That’s a shame. The lost source could supply insight into the many inconsistencies, incongruities, and downright contradictions that abound in Shakespeare’s version of Hamlet.
And so I went to look for it.
Fascinated by the contrast between the heroic, genteel, tragic, “princely” Hamlet I saw portrayed on stage and the creepy, foul-mouthed, egomaniacal murderer whose words and actions I first encountered on page, I began my own search for the third source of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In part because I was no Shakespearean scholar, I was able to look outside the narrow disciplinary parameters that have confined the research scope of literary historians. I ventured out and looked into the real contemporarily recent political happenings in Scandinavia.
And there I found—at least to my satisfaction, and I hope ultimately to the satisfaction of readers of Revenge At Elsinore—the story that I am certain Shakespeare knew and accommodated into his play. It concerns the Bloodbath of Stockholm in 1520. Inside Hamlet, we all know there’s a play within the play. I discovered another story within the play. It is the tale not of Prince Hamlet’s revenge upon King Claudius but of Sweden’s revenge upon Denmark for the 1520 Bloodbath of Stockholm. At least a score of persuasive references within in the play reinforce my hypothesis.
In my next blog I’ll provide plausible circumstantial evidence (not to worry: two centuries of Shakespeare scholarship about Hamlet have been largely based upon clever conjecture) to support my hypothesis without giving away the clues contained in my novel—which, I contend, is the real story Shakespeare embedded. I’ll be “introducing into evidence” the brilliant and not yet widely know work of the Swedish scholar Sten Vedi, whose Elsinore Revisited is a “must read” not only for fans of Hamlet but also for students of comparative literature.
Stay tuned.
Happy May Day, book lovers!
As I mentioned at the outset, I envision this blog site as an arena for good conversation about the subject matter of my novel, the historical period and loci it embraces, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Luther’s Reformation, even literary theory, and anything else germane to historical fiction in general and “Revenge At Elsinore” in particular. In other words, this is the one page on my newly launched website that will not be devoted to marketing the tome.
But, as concupiscent St. Augustine purportedly prayed, “Oh, Master, make me chaste and celibate — but not yet!”
Not yet, because the launch of a book is tricky and fraught. The critical “take-off” stage requires powerful boosters. I’ve been encouraged and gratified by the early handful of reviews (now on Amazon’s bookstore site but soon to be recaptured on this site’s “Reviews” page) and I’d like today to refer you to them. An author can rationalize such shamelessness with the justification that critical reviews elicit themes or topics for subsequent disinterested discussion.
Let me cite and briefly comment on one portion of one review by an American writer who has lived in Japan for the last 45 years or so and (full disclosure) was a collegiate running mate (still an age-group champion at several distances and founder of Japan’s most fabled running club) and comrade during our strange tour of duty in the Cold War and the Far East. We don’t converse much, but last month I alerted him to my newest publication. A few weeks ago I received his email saying simply “Bought it, read it, loved it. Really a brilliant piece of writing–congrats.” Well, I ask you, what sensible recipient of such feedback–especially from a sophisticated literary junkie–could refrain from encouraging him to pen a review?
Not I, not yet.
I had no idea what he might write and admired his frank admission at the outset that it was not an “easy read” but that the reader’s investment yielded rich returns. During the writing I had lots of solid advice to simplify (I wont say “dumb it down”), to move from memoir to post-modern, to reframe the chronology in some sort of trendy Tarantinoesque juxtaposition. Perhaps I’m dull and unimaginative, but in the end I went “indie” in part because I did not want an editor between me and the reader. I wished simply to deliver what I had written and rewritten–good or bad—to chance, fame or oblivion. At least it is my success or failure, no one else’s.
I quote the reviewer briefly here because–with no coaching from me–he intuitively nailed the essence of the novel: “Revenge At Elsinore is alternative history, or maybe alternative drama would be a better description. That is, we learn what Hamlet is ‘actually about,’ what ‘actually happened,’ and who all those characters ‘actually were’ (Shakespeare based his play on actual events, which is O’Donnell’s conceit, but is also in fact probably true.)”
Exactly! I believe the story is true, that Shakespeare knew it, but I can never prove it (though I’ll make an attempt in the sequel). It’s both my conceit and my truth. This reviewer intuited that from the text alone. I would have written the book for no other reason that to have such an assessment, blessed as I am to be surrounded by wonderful minds.
Believe me, I know that wonderful minds don’t always agree with me.
See you next week. Best regards.
I’d like to say “Hi, Everyone!” but this, my website, was just launched a few days ago and I’ve been testing and tweaking it the last few days and have not told anyone that has “gone live.”
Still, in a proto-blog I posted by the excellent web designers, I wrote that I intended to post a blog every Sunday, so I’d better be honest to myself even without an audience. Especially since this Sunday, 24 April 2016, is the day after the worldwide recognition of the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death.
If I can pass this test and succeed in posting this blog, I’ll announce the website’s launch and the recipients can rest assured of my first real blog on Mayday.
Welcome to my blog about Shakespeare, Hamlet, Luther and his Protestant Reformation, Sweden and the rest of 16th-century Europe, and everything else that my first novel Revenge At Elsinore encourages you to discuss.
I’m neither a historian of Europe nor a literary historian, but I’ve done some homework and want to hear from you about your reactions to my new novel and views of its sequel. I look forward to the possibility—nay, certainty—that your responses will correct my many assumptions. That’s the fun of it. I’m game.
Meanwhile, I intend to post a blog each Sunday.
I’ll hope to engage you.