Hee That’s Mad — How Old Is Hamlet, really?
Shakespeare’s writing leaves us with no shortage of questions and confusions. In part, the many details we cannot know (neither about the author, nor about his work) are what makes Shakespeare such a compelling, fascinating character even today, more than 400 years after his death.
One of my personal favorite Shakespearian mysteries is, of course, the question of Hamlet’s age. Down the years, it’s been the subject of much debate, and while researching this article, I’ve come across contributors attesting Hamlet’s age as anywhere between 16 and 30.
Now, many a modern viewer will traditionally associate the grieving Prince of Denmark with a teenager — after all, he’s moody, lonely, pissed off at everyone, and makes a startling amount of suicide references. The trouble there is, we’re using our modern-day understanding of teens as moody, sulky and unpredictable.
But the play Hamlet takes place somewhere around the 1300s/1400s. A very different time for sixteen-year-olds, indeed. Given that in medieval Europe, many sixteen-year-olds were wedded, and working (if not cannon-fodder), it’s highly unlikely they had much time to be skulking about the place.
But, a prince old enough to be a grandfather?!
No exaggeration, it was perfectly possible for people at 30 to become grandparents, if we consider that having kids at 13–14 years old was quite common.
The belief that Hamlet is, in fact, a thirty-year-old man is largely owed to the author himself, namely to the famous graveyard scene that gave us the oft misquoted
Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him, Horatio.
According to the text, Yorick has been dead some 23 years. For Hamlet to have known and be able to remember him, it means he’s at least 27, with the Clown (aka the gravedigger) telling us he’s worked this job since the day Hamlet was born. Thirty odd years.
So, at first glance, Hamlet’s age seems a closed matter. Except, it does raise a worrying number of concerns. For one thing, if a king dies, leaving behind a 30-year-old son, there is no question whatsoever about who assumes the throne. In the play, Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius, assumes the reins (presumably) due to Hamlet’s young age. That’s pretty much the only reason you had, back in the day, for passing the throne to such tutelage, rather than to the heir apparent.
It’s highly unlikely that a healthy 30-year-old man would not inherit his father’s throne.
So already, there’s one problem. Then, there’s Ophelia. While few Shakespearian love stories are as haunting as Hamlet and Ophelia’s, it is, at its core, an immature, adolescent love, largely governed by the king and queen, as well as Polonius, Ophelia’s father.
Again, it’s unlikely that, if Hamlet is the heir of the throne of Denmark, he would remain unmarried, and acting the besotted schoolboy by the time he was 30.
Not really. Most likely, if he really was 30, he’d probably have three kids and be celebrating his tin anniversary with some eligible European heiress.
And yet, Shakespeare said it, so his age must be correct…or must it?
Is Hamlet, after all, a besotted adolescent?
That certainly seems to be in keep with the other facts we know of him — e.g. he’s not in a position to assume rulership, and he is away at school in Wittenberg, at the beginning of the play.
This fascinating research by Robert Cohen suggests that all the confusion relating to Hamlet’s age may well be owed to a printing error. Cohen argues that the original text from Shakespeare’s First Folio tells us quite clearly that Hamlet is sixteen:
HAMLET: How came he mad?
CLOWN: Very strangely they say.
HAMLET: How strangely?
CLOWN: Faith e’ene with loosing his wits.
HAMLET: Upon what ground?
CLOWN: Why heere in Denmarke: I have bin sixeteene heere, man and Boy thirty years.
When the First Folio was adapted and reprinted into the Second Quarto we now refer to, it’s quite possible that the odd spelling of “sixeteene” (16?) was misinterpreted as an alternate spelling of the word “sexton”.
Indeed, in modern versions of the play, the Clown tells of being sexton heere for thirty years. And since he’s been here since Hamlet was born…the reader draws one’s own conclusion.
Yet, that still leaves us with the unresolved matter of Yorick’s death. Cohen suggests, once more, that we look to earlier texts for clarification. And indeed, Hamlet’s First Quarto (the earliest written version of the play) does offer some insight. Here, the dialogue concerning Yorick is as follows:
CLOWN: Looke you, heres a scull hath bin here this dozen yeare,
Let me see, I ever since our last king Hamlet slew Fortenbrasse in combat, yong Hamlets father,
Hee that’s mad.
In this version, Yorick’s only been dead 12 years, which would make it quite plausible that he was giving piggy-back rides and kissing the young four-year-old prince.
Finally, the theory that Hamlet is, in fact, a teen is supported by numerous references to his youth in the text, as well as the original tale that inspired the bard. Originally a novella by Belleforest, in French, the story of Hamlet is that of a mere boy whose father has just been killed. In the original text, prince Hamlet is quite clearly an underage child, burdened with the duties of an adult son (bound by society, rather than ghosts, to avenge his father).
Interestingly enough, the eventual English translation of that novella was adapted to include references to the recently released Shakesperian play, thus lending it more authority (and making research that much harder).
Neither Old, Nor Young — Does Hamlet’s age matter?
It has been argued by some readers that Hamlet’s age doesn’t really matter. His impact both on the original audience, and that of modern day, is as great, irrespective of age. And while it’s true that you can enjoy Hamlet a great deal without caring about the prince’s age, that explanation doesn’t really hold water.
After all, no writer worth his salt would discard a major element in the story (because remember, Hamlet’s age plays into his inheritance), by saying “oh, the good bits will make up for it”.
Other sources put the confusion down to a mere attention slip on Shakespeare’s part. Could it be that the author forgot describing the prince as a youth in Act 1, and made him a man of thirty in Act 5?
It’s possible. After all, audiences at the time couldn’t very well rewind, and go “wait a minute…”.
But that, also, is a somewhat disappointing explanation.
Some claim the prince ages between the beginning of the play, and its end, going from teenager to a 30-year-old. And indeed, there could be a glorious metaphor there. I don’t think Hamlet ages physically, but it’s perfectly possible that his madness, his sorrow, his misunderstood need for vengeance (since the king’s murder is unknown, the prince has no social duty to avenge his father), that all of this has aged Hamlet by more than a decade. From youth to wary old man, by way of madness alone — there’s a thought.
Finally, the most morbid interpretation of the play is, of course, the Hamnet connection. It’s quite likely that, during representations of Hamlet, Shakespeare himself took the stage as the Ghost, in a way reversing roles.
In the play, the author set things right. It was the father who was the ghost, and the son who was yet living (whereas in real life, his son Hamnet had died a mere boy, survived by his father several years). More so, if the age jump is, indeed, intentional, it could be merely a father’s heartbreaking flight of imagination — to see his dead son blossom from youth to man, something Shakespeare would never see. And in an age where few joys were more prized by a man than the birth of a son, it’s likely young Hamnet’s death weighed heavily on the bard’s conscience.
Of course, that’s just a theory. A particularly morbid one, for what father would wish upon their child poor Hamlet’s fate? What do you think?
Thank you for reading! I’m fairly scatterbrained, and this was one of the many random subjects that pique my interest.
I recently put out my first book (the first in a fantasy trilogy), and am working on the next two. So there’s a chance I’ll be talking about that, sometimes, as well as many other random topics.
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