What influenced Shakespeare to write Hamlet?

Expert Answers

An illustration of the letter 'A' in a speech bubbles

Any question about influences on Hamlet probably have to start with Ur-Hamlet, a lost play which was written mere decades before William Shakespeare's Hamlet, and has a very similar plot. Other principal sources available to Shakespeare were Saxo Grammaticus’s Historiae Danicae (circa 1200), which features a popular legend with a plot similar to Hamlet, and François de Belleforest’s Histoires Tragiques, which provides an expanded account of the story recorded in the Historiae Danicae.

See eNotes Ad-Free

Start your 48-hour free trial to get access to more than 30,000 additional guides and more than 350,000 Homework Help questions answered by our experts.

Get 48 Hours Free Access
Approved by eNotes Editorial Team