ABSTRACT
The known sources of Shakespeare's Hamlet do not connect the story in any way with a Renaissance setting or the castle at Elsinore twenty-five miles north of Copenhagen. So it has been surmised that it was on the basis of personal familiarity with the place that Shakespeare chose the newly erected castle for the setting of his version of Saxo' s legendary tale. There is, however, no proofthat Shakespeare had any first-hand experience of the place, but it is quite possible that he may have heard about it from Englishmen who had visited the royal court at Kronborg Castle. Itinerant troupes of entertainers of various kinds are known to have been there in the late sixteenth century, and one of the names recorded in the accounts is that of Will Kempe, who was later a member of Shakespeare's company. What touches of local colour the play contains are not very detailed or accurate, though.
