ABSTRACT
Within the year 1926, London saw six productions of “Hamlet”: the experiment in modern dress, and the interpretations of John Barrymore, Godfrey Tearle, Russell Thorndike, Arthur Phillips, and Ruggieri. The Danish authority on the Shakespearean Drama, George Brandes, observes that this play made Denmark celebrated; and indeed Prince Hamlet is better known than any historic king of Denmark. Only one of Shakespeare’s plays was not acceptable to his public, but was met with a storm of ridicule. And that was “Hamlet”. The name Hamlet, sometimes writ Hamnet as in the case of Shakespeare’s only son, was of Danish origin and British use, just as Nielsen is writ Nelson in our language. The story of Hamlet is a very fine old piece of Danish folk-lore, written down in the thirteenth century by the chronicler Saxo Grammaticus, and embodied in his “Historica Danica,” which was first printed in 1514.
