The first time I saw Hamlet on the stage, I was a bit disappointed. No doubt, it was a brilliant performance by skillful actors. But the content of the play appeared mostly like a concoction of familiar quotations. I had expected a psychologically coherent story but found none. What did the author try to communicate with his play?

The drama has qualified as a part of our cultural heritage, and consequently many of its wordings have become well known and often quoted. It is obvious that Shakespeare did not cram familiar quotations into his play, although it may appear so to a teenager. And surely there is a "main thread" in the plot. We will soon see that Shakespeare wanted his tragedy to convey a quite definite, and indeed important, message.

As we have seen, Shakespeare’s Hamlet is based directly and indirectly on different prototypes. For the moment we will disregard the German Prinz Hamlet, that is not yet generally accepted as one of the prototypes. Certain as forerunners are in any case the Roman story about Lucius Junius Brutus, Sakse’s story about Amlethus (in Latin) and Belleforest’s French version of the latter. Sakse moved the scene from Rome to Danish Jutland, but his setting is not recognizably Danish. The same applies to Belleforest’s version, which exhibits only minor changes from Sakse.

In these three versions of the Brutus-Amlethus-tragedy it takes a long time before the hero performs the crucial deed of the plot--the removing of the villain-uncle. The reason for this delay is that the hero must grow up to manhood in order to do such things. A certain further delay is due to the uncle being suspicious and therefore having his bodyguard around him always.

In Shakespeare’s play it also takes a very long time before Hamlet kills his uncle. As a matter of fact, the killing of King Claudius is the very last act that Hamlet performs in his life. However, in Shakespeare’s version the delay has nothing to do with the hero’s coming of age nor with the King being continuously surrounded by a strong bodyguard. On the contrary, Shakespeare has purposely arranged an excellent opportunity for Hamlet to get at his villainous uncle in the third act. But Hamlet lets the opportunity slip through his fingers, and he puts off the deed for an indefinite period of time.

Beyond all comparison, Hamlet is the play most commented on, all categories considered. Many of the comments deal with the main motif of the play, i.e. Hamlet’s delay. The most interesting question is this: What cause does the author give for the delay? This question has never been satisfyingly answered. Rather it has become regular sport for every authority on Shakespeare to present a personal explanation. Critics have noted that Hamlet may--with a little good will--be interpreted in a number of ways. (Morris Weitz has supplied us with a comprehensive survey of the most important interpretations of Hamlet. His bibliography contains 156 titles.) A.C. Bradley thinks that Hamlet delays because he is melancholy. Ernest Jones asserts that Hamlet suffers from the Oedipus complex. T.S. Eliot regards the delay as something inherited from the prototypes and then inadequately incorporated in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Said the future Nobel Prize laureate: "We must simply admit that here Shakespeare tackled a problem, which proved too much for him." E.E. Stoll thinks that Shakespeare knew that in writing his Hamlet he could not tamper with the plot of the old Ur-Hamlet (supposedly by Kyd), so perforce, he retained the plot with the inherent weakness of the delay.

Such theories can be interesting enough for the sake of argument. Out from the point of literary criticism, there is only one valid explanation--what the author had in mind at the moment of writing. It should therefore always be important for the literary historian to try to establish the author’s intention, i.e. to make clear how he wanted his public to perceive the characters and the action of his play.

Arthur Sewell, Professor of English literature, delivered a series of lectures in the University of Athens in 1949-50. In these lectures (later published as a book) he seems to have subscribed to the above program. He could not, however, elucidate what the author of Hamlet had in mind with his drama. So in his book he concludes: "Hamlet, despite all explanations, remains a puzzle--because it is a puzzle. It defies explanation because there is no explanation--at least, so long as explanation is sought in the character of Hamlet himself." Or in other words: "What I, Arthur Sewell, cannot explain, nobody can explain." This conclusion is a bit precipitate. A little consideration will tell us that a statement such as this must be proved in order to be valid as literary analysis. E.g. in geometry, it requires conclusive proof before it is considered impossible to divide an angle into three equal parts using only compasses and ruler. But Sewell produces no proof. He simply adds another intellectual experiment to the stock of those already extant.

Therefore, the task remains for the literary historians to continue struggling with the mystery of Hamlet. Admittedly, Hamlet’s delay may, with some right, be called a "puzzle", i.e. the author of the play lets none of its characters point out explicitly why Hamlet tarries. He leaves it to the spectator. That is not to say that the play is meant to be like an intricate puzzle picture or like a detective story with carefully hidden clues and motives. On the contrary. As we will see soon enough, Hamlet’s delay is clearly motivated in the text of the play. The key to the puzzle has been there all the time. In his book On Hamlet, Salvador de Madariaga demonstrates the pronounced egocentricity that characterizes Prince Hamlet. This is certainly an important part of the explanation of the delay. In my opinion Madariaga’s book represents "the big leap" within the branch of "Hamlet-interpretation". The egocentricity explains much but not all. What remains will be dealt with in this essay.

Let us first recapitulate the essence of the plot of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

1. Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius, has murdered his brother, the former King of Denmark, and married the widow, Hamlet’s mother. He has made the Estates of the Realm elect him king.

2. The ghost of the murdered King gives his son Hamlet the assignment to revenge the fratricide-regicide. (As a theatrical device Shakespeare sometimes materializes the conscience of a person as a talking ghost.) Hamlet promises to hasten to revenge.

3. Hamlet lets King Claudius persuade him not to return to his studies in Wittenberg. He remains at the Court but behaves (intentionally) a bit strangly.

4. The King engages two former schoolmates of Hamlet to identify the cause of the Prince’s strange behavior.

5. A troupe of actors arrives at the Court. Hamlet immediately makes them put on a stage play. By means of the play he wants to ascertain how the King will react to an acted version of the regicide.

6. Having witnessed the King’s guilt-stricken reaction, Hamlet gets the opportunity to carry out the enjoined revenge, but refrains from the deed. He leaves the King in prayer and goes to his mother, the Queen.

7. In the Queen’s bedchamber Lord Chamberlain Polonius, has hid himself behind a hanging (an "arras") in order to eavesdrop on Hamlet. He reveals his presence by uttering a few words out of fright. Hamlet instantaneously stabs him to death with a thrust from his rapier through the hanging.

8. The ghost appears afresh, and Hamlet realizes that it must have come to remind him of his duty (of conscience). After all, he has almost written off his determination to revenge the murder of his father. The ghost confirms his supposition. (The theatrical substitute for remorse.)

9. The King sends Hamlet to England escorted by the two schoolmates. They bring with them a sealed letter to the King of England.

10. Hamlet gets hold of the letter, opens it and finds in it a request that the receiver should execute Hamlet. He substitutes the names of the schoolmates for his own and seals the letter anew.

11. Hamlet manages to escape back to Denmark. Again he meets his royal uncle but makes no attempt to kill him.

12. Laertes, the son of the slain Lord Chamberlain, returns from France. In anger over his father having been killed he suspects the King and enters the castle at the head of a mob. A coup d’état is in the offing with cries "Laertes shall be king!".

13. The coup fails and the King convinces Laertes that Hamlet deserves death since it was he who killed Polonius.

14. Laertes therefore agrees to make an attempt on Hamlet’s life. It results in both Hamlet and Laertes receiving lethal wounds from the poisoned murder weapon. Laertes, dying, reveals that Hamlet’s wound is a deadly one.

15. Hamlet then immediately stabs the King to death and dies himself in a minute.

16. Fortinbras, a Norwegian Prince with "some rights of memory to this Kingdom", arrives at Elsinore and finds it to be the right moment to claim these rights.

Undeniably, there is much indecision before the revenge is carried out. As Hamlet has behaved, it is mere chance that he finally gets revenge at the murderous King.

How is this long delay to be explained? Hamlet could hardly put the blame on misgivings about a bloody revenge in general. Without hesitation he sends his benevolent schoolmates to death (10). This is his revenge for their attempt to carry out a rather inoffensive assignment given them by their King. They definitely have not done anything deserving capital punishment. The same applies to the eavesdropping Lord Chamberlain Polonius (7).

In one case, vengeance is wreaked in the form a planned murder through a deputy. The other instance is a case of manslaughter without premeditation. In both cases the reason is nothing more than the fact that the persons concerned have tried (in vain) to extort some secret out of Hamlet. When it comes to the Uncle-King who has committed regicide and fratricide, Hamlet hesitates to the very last. After all, the Uncle has murdered Hamlet’s own father, ascended the throne in place of Hamlet and committed incest with Hamlet’s mother (as he sees it). Admittedly, most of this may be explained away as a case of extreme egocentricity. The murder and the incest did not, after all, threaten his own life or his own secrets. But how does this egotist Hamlet react when he finally realizes that the King aspires to liquidate him? Astonishingly, he goes on pottering about, but he does nothing in order to be the first to attack his adversary. For one thing, he picks a quarrel with Laertes. Not once in the play does he make a plan for putting the King to death. Instead, he devotes great care to planning the performance of a play on the stage (5).

When he once gets an exceptional opportunity for revenge (6), he contemplates it for a second, but immediately rejects the thought referring to typical subterfuges (III:3):

________... and am I then reuendged

Compare this with how Laertes and the King plan for their revenge (IV:7):

To cut his throat i’ th’ Church. --

Hamlet gets his opportunity precisely in the church, but he evades his duty saying that this type of revenge would not be efficacious. Almost any other situation would do, but not the one that came his way:

When he is drunke, a sleepe, or in his rage,

At this moment Hamlet certainly realizes that the King is aware of the Prince’s cognizance of the murder committed by Claudius. The play that Hamlet had produced was an unmistakable hint. On top of that, the King has revealed his bad conscience as he watched the play. Now it is simply a race to be the first. Hamlet knows it and still lets the opportunity slip through his fingers.

Or does he just postpone the deed a few minutes? Some critics prefer the explanation that Hamlet intended to kill the King when he committed the "arras murder" in the Queen’s bedchamber (7).

There are two lines in the text to support this interpretation. The first is Hamlet’s answer to his mother’s question about what he has done: "Nay, I know not, is it the King?" The other is his cue when he realizes that it is, in fact, Polonius: "I took thee for thy Betters."

There are, however, two circumstances that speak against the notion that Hamlet commits the tapestry murder with intent to kill the King. First: Polonius gives himself away by uttering a few words behind the arras (not by coughing as in Prinz Hamlet). Hamlet stabs at the hanging after having heard the voice. Second: Within two minutes after the tapestry murder, Hamlet says to the ghost (III:4):

Do you not come your tardy Sonne to chide.

To which the apparently omniscient ghost answers:

Do not forget: this Visitation

The last particular is unambiguous and decisive. Hamlet did not intend to kill the King when minutes before he ran his rapier through a living body.

Therefore, we must take his line"I took thee for thy Betters" to mean that he has "punished" a subordinate instead of his master (who would certainly also deserve punishment).

In sum: Not once does Hamlet intend to carry out his mission of revenge before he is exiled from Denmark. On the contrary, he dodges out of it when an opportunity comes his way. It is only in the last minute of the play that he commits the deed that he so willingly promised to do at the beginning of the play. What, then, is the psychological reason for this attitude--as seen from the point of view of the interior logic of the drama?

The first point to observe is that Hamlet is presented as a kind of heir to the throne. Admittedly, in Denmark the succession was based on election, not on inheritance--in the play as well as in real life. But Shakespeare and his contemporaries certainly knew that kings each of whom had been the oldest son of another king had long ruled this kingdom. Moreover, King Claudius declares in so many words that Hamlet is the one who is next to the throne. Finally the author makes clear that Hamlet is "loued of the distracted multitude" as he makes the King put it (IV:3). There is no doubt about whom the Estates will elect king, when Claudius dies--it is Hamlet.

We presume that the entire upbringing of Hamlet has been aimed at preparing him for this position. After all, as the oldest son of the reigning King, he is an obvious candidate for the throne. Under the circumstances, it is natural that Hamlet’s conscience says: "It is your duty to succeed your father as King of Denmark. It is you and not a fratricide-regicide that shall sit on the throne of the realm. In order to fulfil this your obligation, you must first remove your criminal uncle. By doing it you shall become a king and at the same time demonstrate that you really are a king."

Implicitly included in Hamlet’s obligation is thus to ascend the throne immediately after having slain the usurper King. This will be the consequence of an election, the outcome of which is known beforehand. This is what the Amlethus of the model story does, and this is what the logic of the play prescribes Hamlet to do.

But why do we not hear anything about these consequences in the play? The ghost could have pointed it out, or Hamlet could have reflected on it, but Shakespeare has them both concentrate on the first step, the revenge. If Hamlet kills the King, the rest will follow automatically. Hamlet unburdens his mind about a lot of things, but he never says that he looks forward to becoming a king. Only once in the last act (V:2) he mentions that Claudius has "Popt in betweene th’election and my hopes".

In this respect he forms a glaring contrast to three other characters in the play. Claudius has committed fratricide in order to usurp the throne. Laertes allies himself with the mob in order to revenge the murder of his father, and he is obviously prepared to usurp the throne if a successful coup d’état would materialize (IV:5). Fortinbras, nephew of the King of Norway, "embraces his fortune" and decides to ascend the throne, without bothering about a formal election by the Estates. In Hamlet, the throne of Denmark is clearly presented as a seat much coveted--by all except Hamlet. He shuns it like the plague. He does not even want to talk neither about becoming king nor about what he would do as a future ruler of Denmark. As long as there is the slightest risk of being enthroned, Hamlet carefully avoids killing King Claudius. He exposes himself to his uncle’s murder plots rather than taking the risk of being elected King.

But Hamlet actually kills the King. And, to be sure, he does it at the very moment when he realizes that he will not be elected king after Claudius, i.e. right after Laertes has told him:

It is heere Hamlet

It is after hearing this confession that Hamlet does not hesitate any more. He uses the poisoned weapon in his hand to hurt the King mortally. The deed is just as swift as the killing of Polonius.

Shakespeare has really endeavored to show that Hamlet does not shun physical violence and that he has no scruples about killing his uncle. Hamlet is even made to pronounce a wish for an especially cruel revenge (albeit as a subterfuge): the King should be killed "about some acte That ha’s no relish of Salutation in’t". But even so, he is psychologically inhibited to commit the deed as long as it would bring a crown in its train.

The next question that begs an answer is why Hamlet cannot accept the crown. After all, it represents the position in the realm to which he has been predestined by his royal descent and his upbringing. Again we shall find that Shakespeare has provided exact information if we bother to look for it.

The onlooker or the reader certainly realizes that Hamlet is wanting in such qualities that usually characterize able rulers. Shakespeare provides us with an excellent display of good rulership in the second scene of the first act of Hamlet. There King Claudius delivers a long speech containing a number of decisions regarding various affairs of State. He comments on his brother’s death and on his own marriage, he delegates two emissaries to go to the King of Norway, he grants a request from Laertes etc. This is a behavior that becomes a head of State. Prince Hamlet is portrayed as totally different from this model.

He is obviously not at all capable of making well-considered decisions in intricate situations. He shows no resolution in his relationship with Ophelia, he acts rashly towards Polonius behind the hanging, towards Laertes on the graveyard, etc. When his conscience insists on his acting politically and taking over the responsibility to rule Denmark, he reacts with these words (I:5):

The time is out of ioynt: Oh cursed spight,

At another occasion Hamlet says that for him "Denmark’s a Prison". It is scarcely this kind of feeling that born rulers usually cherish. We must imagine that after the first meeting with the ghost, Hamlet has not yet reached the degree of self-knowledge required for realizing that he will never assume the supreme authority of the realm. But already in the very beginning of the play he makes this comparison (I:2):

My Fathers Brother: but no more like my Father,

The ancient Greeks held Hercules as the heroic champion fighting unselfishly against evil powers. The ability to take action was one of his distinguishing qualities. Precisely this mythologic character is seen by Hamlet as an opposite of himself. Obviously the Prince realizes well enough that he lacks some of the virtues and capacities that a king should preferably possess. But in Shakespeare’s time the general opinion was that "royal" virtues were inevitably inherited by those of royal descent. A prince of the blood could therefore hardly grasp that he might lack the royal virtues that he theoretically had inherited.

Hamlet knows--intellectually--that he is of royal descent and that he has had a royal upbringing. He therefore should possess the divine gift of the capacity to reign over a kingdom. But emotionally he knows only too well that he is not capable of ruling. The compulsion constantly to arrive at important political desicions in the interest of the realm must appear repellent to him. Even the decision to abdicate might be too much to a character like Hamlet’s. To abdicate means to arrive at a political decision that requires just the kind of aptitude that Hamlet lacks. In our days we have seen this inability in senile dictators and presidents affected by illness. António Salazar, Franklin Roosevelt, Leonid Brezhnev and many others did not possess judgement and willpower enough to resign when they had become unable to govern. If Hamlet had inherited the throne, he would probably have stayed upon it until he had been deposed or died. But Hamlet does not inherit the throne of Denmark. Like many real Princes of the Renaissance, he is in the situation that his first decision as a professional decision-maker would be the decision to seize power. This decision he cannot arrive at because of his hereditary characteristics. Admittedly, he is able to kill people who have wronged him personally. But it is quite another matter, requiring different capacities, to make decisions affecting the welfare of a realm and a people.

Throughout the tragedy, Hamlet finds himself in a situation of conflict. He would like to kill Claudius, who has wronged him much more than have his schoolmates and old Polonius. But if he does that, he will immediately find himself compelled to arrive at political decisions in a number of issues. This, he realizes--emotionally--he cannot do. Consequently he postpones the regicide. In order to justify--rationally--the delay, he invents the pretexts. This is what psychologists call "rationalization".

In the final stage of the play the conflict is settled. Hamlet knows that there is no time left for him to rule a kingdom. Accordingly he kills the King without any more diversions.

If Hamlet had killed the King at any previous moment he would have made himself miserable. He loves the theatre and life at a university--not to govern. His so-called conscience, i.e. the memory of all that has been drummed into him during his upbringing, tells him that it is his duty to choose the governing. But he cannot follow the command of duty because he cannot change his innate disposition. Therefore these incessant soliloquies, therefore this utter lack of plans and decisions to carry out the revenge.

This much is what onlookers and readers are in a position to understand. Hamlet himself does not fully grasp the whole situation. This is clear from the many soliloquies where he reveals his innermost thoughts. It is obvious that he broods a lot over his conflict of conscience. But he cannot understand why

__________... the Natiue hew of Resolution

whenever he thinks about the revenge. The author apparently wanted it to be like this. He had good reason. If Hamlet had been clear-headed enough to realize that the belief in native royal qualities was mistaken, then he should not have been dull enough to be fooled into the King’s deathtrap. It would have been another play about another Hamlet. Irrespective of the author’s intelligence, the theatre convention certainly sets limits to the intelligence of the characters represented on the stage.

We may ask whether Shakespeare himself was aware of the reason for Hamlet’s dilemma. From an historical point of view this is an interesting question. The literary critic might well ignore it completely. If a dramatist creates his principal part from a living model, he may well accomplish a psychologically coherent character. This he can do even without understanding the motives of the portrayed person. The author’s degree of insight of the motives of his fictional persons is therefore irrelevant for our understanding of a dramatic or literary work.

But behind every good dramatic work there is a portion of the real world. Many of us would like to take a little look into this real world in connection with enjoying the work. In the case of Hamlet, we have reason to assume that the author delineated some of his characters from living models. E.g. the outward appearance of King Claudius seems to be modeled on Frederick II of Denmark (1534-88, see Figure 7). King Frederick reigned from 1559 and he is known as a powerful personality. Life at his court was characterized by pomp and circumstance. His drinking habits were precisely such as those of King Claudius in the play--which are criticized by Hamlet.

Lord Chamberlain Polonius is clearly intended as a travesty on William Cecil, Baron of Burghley (1520-98), the chief counselor of Queen Elizabeth. Burghley’s official standing was that of Lord High Treasurer (1572-98), i.e. he served as a Prime Minister. E.g. the exhortations that Polonius showers upon his son on the eve of a journey to France are apparently drawn from Burghley’s admonitions to his son in a like situation in 1561.

Since the two biggest parts but one have such a palpable attachment to real persons, we may ask whether the same holds for the principal part as well. Which real person could have been the model for this prince of the blood who shuns the royal crown?

At the time when Shakespeare’s Hamlet was composed, the succession of a new monarch was imminent in the Kingdom of England. Queen Elizabeth was in her 60’s and lacked direct heirs. She actually died a septuagenarian in 1603, the year when Hamlet was first published. The succession problem had been a topic for discussion during the previous years. For want of a hereditary prince, any person descended from an English King became a possible choice. Apart from children of other such individuals there were twelve eligible persons alive about the year 1600.

As matters then stood, England was a de facto electoral realm. Five of the twelve candidates were foreigners, two of them kings. Among the domestic seven, the 6th Earl of Derby (William Stanley, 1561-1642) seemed to be the most suitable. Derby was the grandson of a granddaughter of Henry VII and at the same time second cousin to Queen Elizabeth (see Appendix D). He professed himself an Anglican, but he was accepted by the Catholics as well. His ancestress was appointed heir next to her brother (Henry VIII) in the will of Henry VII. As an earl, Sir William was one of the 20 topmost peers of the English nobility. So far as we know, this prominent royal offspring did nothing at all in order to assert his claim to the throne.

Instead Elizabeth was succeeded by a foreigner professing another religion and being the king of another country already. He was James VI of Scotland (1566-1625), also a grandson of a granddaughter of King Henry VII. His ancestress was an older sister of Derby’s ancestress and he was consequently a third cousin of Derby. James was the son of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, pretender to the throne of England and executed by Queen Elizabeth. It is obvious that Derby tacitly cast his vote for this distant relative from a northern sister nation. It is a striking parallel to Hamlet’s commitment a few seconds before his death:

But I doe prophesie th’election lights

Fortinbras’s relation to Hamlet and Denmark equals that of James’s to Derby and England. But the resemblance between Derby and Hamlet does not stop at that. As we have seen, Hamlet takes an enormous interest in theatrical performances, past and present. He directs the actors and offers to write a passage to be fitted into a certain play. All this seems to interest him more than the state of Denmark.

This recalls Derby’s attitude when in June 1599, he was approached by a certain George Fenner. The latter was an agent sent by the Continental Catholics to sound Derby out on his attitude towards running for the succession. Fenner wrote a letter about his findings to his partner Balthazar Gybels in Antwerp: "Therle of Darby is busyed only in penning comedies for the commoun players." In another letter to Sire Humfredo Galdelli or Giuseppe Tusinga in Venice he repeated the same message: "Our Earle of Darby is busye in penning commodyes for the commoun players." Apparently the theatre interested Derby more than the prospect of ascending the throne. The plays that Derby wrote must have been published anonymously or under a pen name, if they were printed at all. This is almost a matter of course, because it was considered beneath the dignity of an earl to expose his name in such a connection. The only posthumous works of Derby in his own name are private letters and a musical composition. And just as both Hamlet and Derby wrote for the theater, so both of them also traveled abroad as students. (See Appendix E.)

Still, the similarities between the two are not exhausted even with that. The estimation that persons in the play deliver on Hamlet is much the same as the general opinion about Derby. Says e.g. Fortinbras (V:2):

For he was likely, had he beene put on

Apparently, this corresponds to what the Catholic agents thought about Derby. Presumably Derby was noted for such "royal" impartiality that even the Catholics could have accepted him as King. In 1594 they published a book (abroad) about the problems of succession with pros and cons for the various candidates. It was entitled A conference about the next succession to the crowne of Ingland and contained strong arguments for Derby as successor to Elizabeth. Judging from Fenner’s letters, Derby must have rejected all direct and indirect proposals. This makes one think of the two "secret agents", i.e. the schoolmates, who call on Hamlet with some beating about the bush. To them Hamlet says on one occasion (III:2):

Why do you thinke, that I am easier to bee plaid on,

Of particular interest is that the schoolmates do not really "play upon" Hamlet. That is to say, they never coax him into doing things, they merely try to extract some secret from him. They simply converse with Hamlet a little bit more inquisitively than what politeness would indicate. The lines quoted above would therefore fit better into the mouth of Derby as a reprimand to the Catholic agents who most probably tried to make Derby dance to their tune.

Indeed, we can understand the drama about the Danish Prince very well, without knowing that there was a living prototype of him in contemporary England. Hamlet’s dilemma is neither time-bound nor typical of a certain country. Even today people may get into similar dilemmas. (Let us assume that a single son is born to an owner of a big enterprise that has been handed down from father to son for generations. And suppose that the owner’s brother ousts the owner with unjust methods. The ousted father might then exhort the reluctant son to do something about it, etc.)

One of the assignments of literary history is to provide readers with keys for understanding works such as Hamlet. The questions regarding historic and contemporary prototypes will have to be secondary. So does the coming into being of the works of art.

These second-rank questions concern primarily the professional critics, but not exclusively. Sometimes the second-rank questions may be of great interest to the laity as well.

Bradley, A.C., Shakespearian Tragedy, London 1904.

Eliot, T.S., "Hamlet and His Problems", The Athenaeum, No. 4665, London 1919.

Greenstreet, James, "A hitherto unknown noble writer of Elizabethan comedies", The Genealogist, Vol 7, p. 205, London 1891.

Greenstreet, James, "Further notices of William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby, K.G., as a poet and dramatist", The Genealogist, Vol. 8, p. 8, London 1892.

Jones, Ernest, Hamlet and Oedipus, New York 1949.

Madariaga, Salvador de, On Hamlet, London 1948.

Sewell, Arthur, Character and Society in Shakespeare, Oxford 1951.

Shakespeare Reprints. II, (Q1, Q2 and F1.) Marburg 1913.

Shakespeare, William, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Collins Clear-type Press, London.

Stoll, Elmer Edgar, Hamlet the Man The English Association, pamphlet No. 91, London 1935.

Titherley, A.W., Shakespeare’s Identity, Winchester 1952.

Weitz, Morris, Hamlet and the Philosophy of Literary Criticism, Chicago 1964.

Wilson, Thomas, The State of England Anno Domini 1600. Reprinted in Camden Third Series, Vol. 52, London 1936.