Languages and themes

Who's this? Kiernan Ryan is Professor of English at Royal Holloway, University of London and a Fellow of New Hall, University of Cambridge.

Did you know? Revenge Tragedy was a popular form of 16th / 17th Century Drama. It is based on the pagan tradition of blood for blood which is evident in the Historiae Danicae written by Saxo Grammaticus, the 12th century source for the Hamlet. In this source material, when Hamlet kills Polonius he cuts up the body and throws it into the open sewers to be eaten by pigs. Revenge tragedies usually follow this bloody vein. Hamlet is unusual in questioning this attitude, delaying violent action and offering more complex moral debate, making it seem more modern than its contemporaries.

Shakespeare added the ghost, the Mousetrap scene , the drowning Ophelia, the pirates, the graveyard scene, Laertes, Fortinbras and Osric.

There appears to have been an earlier Elizabethan version of Hamlet - possibly by Thomas Kyd. We call this the Ur-Hamlet, the Hamlet-that-went-before

Find out about: Some of the most famous Revenge Tragedies:
The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd, The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster, The Revenger's Tragedy by Cyril Tourneur, The Changeling by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley.