jsburbidge (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jsburbidge) wrote2011-09-15 02:45 pm
jsburbidge) wrote2011-09-15 02:45 pm
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Retellings of Hamlet
Everything that can be said has probably been said about OSC's butchered^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H retold version of Shakespeare's Hamlet. However, the discussion reminded me of something: the Hamlet story goes back a long way and has some odd extensions (consider non-fiction works like Hamlet's Mill). One of its tendrils was a retelling by James Branch Cabell which went back far more closely to the original: Hamlet Had An Uncle. (The link goes to a Google Books partial preview of the print-only Wildside Press edition.)
It is very Cabellian in style: "Hamlet was that son whom the loving endeavors of Geruth and Fengon had begotten in the bed of Horvendile[1][2] They tell of yellow-haired big Hamlet how inexpressibly was his conduct adapted to distress his parents". It is also very much more, um, early Germanic in plot and structure: the obvious parallel to draw as a modern retelling is Tolkien's The Legend Of Sigurd And Gudrun (although that is verse and this is prose).
[1] In this story Hamlet's father regains his traditional name of Horvendile (Danish) == Earendel (A/S) == the evening star. Yes, it's where Cabell got the name of the Poictesme character.
[2] Note that in this older variant of the story Hamlet is Fengon's (=Claudius') son, although he believes himself to be Horvendile's.
It is very Cabellian in style: "Hamlet was that son whom the loving endeavors of Geruth and Fengon had begotten in the bed of Horvendile[1][2] They tell of yellow-haired big Hamlet how inexpressibly was his conduct adapted to distress his parents". It is also very much more, um, early Germanic in plot and structure: the obvious parallel to draw as a modern retelling is Tolkien's The Legend Of Sigurd And Gudrun (although that is verse and this is prose).
[1] In this story Hamlet's father regains his traditional name of Horvendile (Danish) == Earendel (A/S) == the evening star. Yes, it's where Cabell got the name of the Poictesme character.
[2] Note that in this older variant of the story Hamlet is Fengon's (=Claudius') son, although he believes himself to be Horvendile's.