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jallanite · 08-30-2015, 05:53 PM

I note that Verlyn Flieger is quoted as follows:

"Kullervo is the origin story for Shakespeare's Hamlet - a young man whose uncle kills his father and on whom he wreaks a terrible vengeance," says Verlyn Flieger. "It is likely that Tolkien knew that Shakespeare had used this tale."

Quite wrong, I think. The story of Hamlet has been traced to the end of Book III of Saxo Grammaticus’ Gesta Danorum (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_D...story/Book_III). Saxo lived about 1150 to 1220. The hero is mentioned under the name Amlóðí by the Icelandic author Snorri Sturluson in his Prose Edda around 1220, in his Skáldskaparmal, chapter XXV (http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/pre/pre05.htm). Shakespeare may have known the story through the popular retelling by François de Belleforest in his Histoires Tragiques in 1576, which retelling may have at least inspired one earlier Elizabethan play before Shakespeare’s.

The story of Kullervo was part of the Kalevala, first compiled and published by Elias Lönnrot in Finnish in 1835—36 as the Old Kalevala and published in its standard version in Finnish in 1849. I don’t think it at all “likely that Tolkien knew that Shakespeare had used this tale” not even written in Shakespeare’s day, because I don’t believe that Tolkien had any such belief or that Tolkien would have been right if he held it. Rulers who were slain by their nephews are reasonably common in stories and even real history. One ought to be able to support a belief with something more than, “It is likely,” especially when it isn’t.

08-30-2015, 05:53 PM	#12
jallanite Shade of Carn Dûm Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Toronto Posts: 479	I note that Verlyn Flieger is quoted as follows: "Kullervo is the origin story for Shakespeare's Hamlet - a young man whose uncle kills his father and on whom he wreaks a terrible vengeance," says Verlyn Flieger. "It is likely that Tolkien knew that Shakespeare had used this tale." Quite wrong, I think. The story of Hamlet has been traced to the end of Book III of Saxo Grammaticus’ Gesta Danorum (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_D...story/Book_III). Saxo lived about 1150 to 1220. The hero is mentioned under the name Amlóðí by the Icelandic author Snorri Sturluson in his Prose Edda around 1220, in his Skáldskaparmal, chapter XXV (http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/pre/pre05.htm). Shakespeare may have known the story through the popular retelling by François de Belleforest in his Histoires Tragiques in 1576, which retelling may have at least inspired one earlier Elizabethan play before Shakespeare’s. The story of Kullervo was part of the Kalevala, first compiled and published by Elias Lönnrot in Finnish in 1835—36 as the Old Kalevala and published in its standard version in Finnish in 1849. I don’t think it at all “likely that Tolkien knew that Shakespeare had used this tale” not even written in Shakespeare’s day, because I don’t believe that Tolkien had any such belief or that Tolkien would have been right if he held it. Rulers who were slain by their nephews are reasonably common in stories and even real history. One ought to be able to support a belief with something more than, “It is likely,” especially when it isn’t.