saxo grammaticus

el historiador medieval que refería los hechos acontecidos en dinamarca. uno a quien shakespeare le tomó prestado el tema para hamlet. por supuesto hizo algunos cambios y quedó muy bien. según stephen greenblatt shakespeare era un ladrón y se sentía bien robando historias. era un pierre menard. parece que el asunto del fantasma sin embargo proviene de otra fuente, de un contemporáneo que escribió una versión para otra compañía de teatro de londres en la que en algún punto de la historia se oye un "hamlet, revenge" dicho desde el más allá por un espectro de origen desconocido.

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creo que por primera vez (luego de haber visto hamlet varias veces a lo largo de mi vida) estoy empezando a ¿entender? de qué se trata.

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The most compelling source for Hamlet is to me the Scandinavian story of Amleth as a young boy who is bereaved of his father and is supposed to get revenge when he grows up. The idea of a young man who is under social pressure to achieve something big and burdening (in Amleths case a revenge) is an idea that we can bring back to our own times: how many young people feel that there are things they are expected to do or achieve, things that are too difficult or impossible to accomplish because they are not emotionally prepared or even because they simply do not want to do those things 

Shakespeare's twist of the story releases Hamlet from society expectations related to his father assassination (since no one knows about it) but it does not release him from other kind of social conventions like for example, for how long would it be reasonable to be mourning someone you loved? He is questioned for his melancholy and is asked to forget about his father, not only by Claudio (who may be interested because he is the murderer) but by Gertrude, Polonious and even his friends.

So the anxiety of revenge comes from his own desire of revenge which has been prompted by the Ghost apparition. I think his own pressure is even more burdening because he has no way to avoid it. Had he been in the same situation than Amleth, his pretension of madness would have been enough to escape from social pressure. In Shakespeare's play it is not possible, and it makes him very perturbed, sad, and maybe in the end, mad.