Hamlet Group

Question:


acebrisk
Student
High School - 11th Grade

Whats the specific year that Shakespere completed the story "Hamlet"?

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Posted by acebrisk on Saturday December 13, 2008 at 11:30 AM and tagged with completion date, hamlet.

Answers:

  1. cburr
    cburr Teacher
    Middle School

    eNotes Editor

    This is actually not an easy question to answer.  It seems that most people think Shakespeare finished Hamlet in 1601, although that date is disputed.

    Of all Shakespeare’s plays Hamlet has attracted far more popular and critical attention than any other, and it is natural that we should want to know when it was written. No apology need be offered for the attempt to determine as precisely as possible the date of a work so outstanding in the annals of the theatre. That the text of the Hamlet we know belongs to the years 1598–1601 is generally agreed, the majority of modern scholars being in favour of 1601. Yet no recent survey of the available evidence has been made and, when we do examine this evidence carefully, it looks as though Shakespeare more probably produced the tragedy either late in 1599 or early in 1600.

    Sources:
    http://cco.cambridge.org/extract?id=ccol0521064228_CCOL05...

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    Posted by cburr on Saturday December 13, 2008 at 11:34 AM