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This course will focus on fiction, poetry, plays, visual material and films directly inspired by Shakespeare’s Hamlet, with particular focus on three categories: 1. the ancient Scandinavian legends that inspired Elizabethan versions of the story; 2. National interpretative traditions; 3. the connection, which Shakespeare himself set up, between his student-prince and Wittenberg, the university of Luther, Melanchthon, Giordano Bruno and, last but not least, Dr. Faustus.Ìý

Our starting point will be Shakespeare's First Quarto, Second Quarto and Folio texts of Hamlet, and we will tackle the problem of their complex relationship and of the ways the manipulation and conflation of these texts have affected the understanding of the play and its protagonist.ÌýÌý

We will then focus on other creative works, literary or visual, that attempt to illuminate obscure points of Hamlet’s story, or flesh out minor characters of the play and clarify the nature of Hamlet’s relation to them.ÌýÌý

Finally, we will examine five seminal cinematographic interpretations of the play, to reflect in particular on the fact that, as with novels inspired by Hamlet, movies of Hamlet rely on the familiarity their audiences have, if not with the Shakespearean text, at least with its plot, in order to give their own interpretation of the play, but also, through it, their own view of the world. Ìý

Aims and Learning Outcomes:Ìý

To develop the students’ ability to:ÌýÌý

• conduct close (con)textual analysis on the three versions of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and on versions of the story that inspired itÌý

• reflect on poems, short stories, novels, films and paintings inspired by Shakespeare’s Hamlet through a diachronic and comparative perspective that makes it possible to understand characteristics of literary and visual genres, and similarities and differences within the worksÌý

• formulate their own questions on these issues and present them in short non-assessed oral presentations and within the conventions of academic writingÌý

By the end of the course students will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:Ìý

• the historical, philosophical and religious contexts in which Shakespeare developed his Hamlet(s)Ìý
• the particular place that Hamlet has in the Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy as a specific genreÌý
• the influence exercised by historical contexts, cultural traditions and notions of gender on the iconography of Hamlet, the reception of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and its performance on stage and screen in Europe between the XVI and the XX centuryÌýÌýÌý

Suggested Reading:Ìý

Key primary sourcesÌý

1) TextsÌý

• Saxo Grammaticus, Historia Danica, Book III (any English translation)Ìý

• Hamlet: The Texts of 1603 and 1623, edited by Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor. The Arden Shakespeare Third Series, 2006Ìý

• Hamlet: Revised edition, edited by Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor. The Arden Shakespeare Third Series, 2016 [modernized text based on the Second Quarto text with a new introductory essay covering key productions and criticism in the decade since its first publication]. Ìý

• John Updike, Gertrude and Claudius, Penguin Books, 2000 (novel)Ìý

• Graham Holderness, The Prince of Denmark, Hatfield, 2002 (novel)Ìý

• David Davalos, Wittenberg: A Tragical-comical-historical in Two Acts, 2008 (play)Ìý

• Selection of poems and short stories by Ferdinand Freiligrath, Arthur Rimbaud, Boris Pasternak, Anthony Burgess, Margaret Atwood and others.Ìý

2) FilmsÌý

• Hamlet, dir. S. Gade (Germany, 1920)Ìý

• Hamlet, dir. L. Olivier (GB, 1948)Ìý

• Hamlet, dir. G. Kozintsev (USSR, 1964)Ìý

• Hamlet, dir. F. Zeffirelli (USA, 1990)Ìý

• Hamlet, dir. K. Branagh (USA, 1996)Ìý