f the seventeenth century and at the close of Queen Elizabeth's reign, Hamlet was probably performed first in July, 1602; it was first published in written form in 1603, and appeared in an enlarged edition in 1604. Shakespeare often appropriated ideas and stories from earlier literary works into his own plays, as was common practice during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; he likely knew the story of Hamlet from an earlier German play, and from a prose work called Hystorie of Hamblet translated from Francois de Belleforest's Histoires Tragiques, and from an ancient history of Denmark, written by Saxo Grammaticus in the twelfth century. What Shakespeare then made of this raw material--the story of a Danish prince whose father is murdered by his uncle, whom his mother then marries--may have been informed by a much more personal tragedy: Shakespeare's young son (whose name was Hamnet) died in Stratford shortly before the play was written, which has led many critics to speculate that Shakespeare's grief for his son found expression in Hamlet's grief for his father. Of course, Shakespeare's intentions are entirely undocumented, and all assertions about his inspirations and influences, as with so many claims about Shakespeare, can only be speculation.
             Hamlet - The Prince of Denmark. Hamlet is the son of the late King Hamlet, and the nephew of the present king, Claudius. At the start of the play, Hamlet's mother, Gertrude, has recently married Claudius, her dead husband's brother. When Hamlet learns from his father's ghost that Claudius murdered his father before marrying his mother, the discovery propels the action of the play, as the young prince grapples with the question of whether or not he should seek revenge. A reflective and thoughtful young man who has studied at Wittenberg, Hamlet is also prone to fits of passion and impulsive action.
             Claudius - The King of Denmark, Hamlet's uncle, and the play's antagonist. The villain ...