What is Hamlet based on?

Answer 1

Hamlet is ultimately based on the story of Amleth, which is found in a medieval Danish history by Saxo Grammaticus. Although called a history, the Amleth story, as recorded by Saxo, certainly contains more myth and legend than fact.

Shakespeare's Hamlet, and Saxo's Amleth, are quite different in important respects, but the story lines are roughly similar, and Hamlet has a number of incidental details that appeared earlier in 'Amleth.'

A French writer, Francois de Belleforest, translated Saxo's story of Amleth into French in 1570, and it probably entered English cultural consciousness via that French translation.

There is a reference from 1589 to an English stage version of Hamlet, although it's very doubtful that play was the same one we have now. The earlier 'Hamlet' (called ur-Hamlet) is traditionally ascribed to Thomas Kyd, although some scholars have opined it might have been by Shakespeare.

The best guess seems to be that Shakespeare's company obtained the earlier English 'Hamlet', in the mid-1590's, and Shakespeare then reworked it, to make it into the play we have now, as published in the Second Quarto of 1604-1605, and later in the First Folio of 1623.

So, according to current thinking, Hamlet probably developed by way of the following path:

Saxo's Amleth - >

Belleforest's translation ->

An English play by Kyd - >

Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Answer 2

One of Tom Stoppard's most famous plays, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is loosely based on Hamlet; except it is an absurdist play with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's as the main characters instead of Hamlet. Another Stoppard play, Dogg's Hamlet (Cahoot's Macbeth) also has a basis in Shakespeare's play Hamlet. The people in the play are rehearsing for a production of Hamlet in English, which to them is a foreign language.

The play by Tom Stoppard which is, perhaps, based most on Hamlet is his work: 15-Minute Hamlet. It is an extremely condensed version of Shakespeare's play. It includes all of the most well known scenes, and cuts out much of the action.