Vita Haroldi and Hamlet—a flight of the imagination

Authors

  • David Bell Independent Researcher

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.48148/ljes.v5i.26015

Abstract

This discursive article was inspired by a reading of Vita Haroldi and in seeing similarities to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In the introduction, I examine the possible links between the medieval survival story Vita Haroldi and Hamlet. Part One explicates three potential approaches to a study of early modern English literature: the traitorous letter trope, the historiography of the death of medieval English kings, and the interest of leading lights in Elizabethan England in Anglo-Saxon law and the church. Part two implements these approaches in a brief reading and interpretation of Hamlet. Both the play Hamlet and the character of Prince Hamlet are situated in a transition from the medieval to the early modern; from a faith-based world to a rational one, from a focus on revenge to one on justice.

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Published

2024-02-07 — Updated on 2024-02-07