Sir Lawrence Olivier begins his 1948 film adaptation of Hamlet with a voice-over stating, “this is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind” (0:02:57). From the beginning of the film the audience is captivated by a misconception in terms of Hamlet’s independence in the events to unfold. William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is not commonly known to be an adaptation, but the story was not originally his own creation. Instead, the work comes from Saxo Grammaticus’s 12th century story The Danish History. Hamlet and The Danish History rely on the same overall framework — a usurping uncle becomes king after killing the main character’s father; however, there are distinct divides between the two stories by way of Christianity and social structure. Each aspect has direct influences on the communal or individual natures of the forthcoming revenge tragedies. Saxo highlights his main character, Amleth, as being independent in his vengeance. Conversely, Hamlet is a story widely misconceived as individual and violent like Saxo’s; however, it is based on social efforts to conduct tragic happenings. The prime distinction between the two stories comes from how the act of revenge is carried out, one being individual and the other being communal, which forces a focus on the idea of agency within each of the stories and inherently makes one more overtly brutal than the other. Hamlet’s importance is due to the complexity of the nature of Hamlet’s predicament and the form in which Shakespeare recreates the intricacy of humanity. It is evident by way of the internal struggles of Hamlet that this play is extremely complex in its relation to human morality. Hamlet, as a character, is devout and virtuous, and in respect to those qualities, there is a generational divide from his father — that is, the customs between Hamlet’s and his father’s generations are different. Hamlet is a scholar and formally educated, while his father is more brutal and primitively violent. Hamlet is thrust into hardship after the murder of his father, King Hamlet, when Claudius, his uncle, usurps the throne and marries his mother, Queen Gertrude. He is set into action when the ghost of his father comes back to haunt him and asks him to avenge his death. Norman Austin explains the immense importance of the ghost character, stating, “Hamlet senior, thought dead, is very much alive and, in fact, the prime mover of the play” (Austin 154). Without the ghost of Hamlet’s dead father, there is a question regarding if Hamlet would have ever seen the need to avenge his death. Concurrently, while Hamlet is internally battling with the choice to avenge his father’s murder or trust divinity, a war is being waged, and Denmark is coming under attack. Furthermore, Hamlet’s actions, or lack thereof, cause other characters within the play extreme hardship, anguish, and even death, while he battles with himself over the notion of revenge or chastity. 

Saxo Grammaticus’s 12th century book The Danish History presents the origins of Hamlet. Within Saxo’s story, Shakespeare’s Hamlet goes by a different name, Amleth the Prince of Denmark, but is faced with a similar predicament as our better-known Hamlet. His father was murdered by his uncle, Feng, who goes on to usurp the throne and marry his mother, Gerutha. However, within Saxo’s text there is a lack of hesitation when it comes to avenging Amleth’s father, and there is no necessary implementation of a plot-moving ghost character. This is distinctly due to the lack of generational divide between Amleth and his deceased father, King Horwindil. Thus, the plot is reflective of ancient Danish norms and heritage and as a result produces an overtly violent story. The story’s society depicts murder and violence as a regular and often public occurrence. Marvin Hunt explains how within the social sphere of the tale, there are “no private means of revealing the nature of the murder to the hero” (Hunt 13). Within Saxo’s story, Amleth is openly taught violence by his father which is exuded on page one of the book. The dead king is characterized by his brutality, stating, “Horwendil, in his too great ardor, became keener to attack his enemy than to defend his own body” (Grammaticus 1). Presented here are the great lengths King Horwindil will go to conduct violence to prevail; thus, Amleth is expected to do the same by proxy. Not having murder censored within society makes people desensitized and less remorseful to violence. This lack of sensitivity, paired with the lack of religion, results in people taking revenge into their own hands, a practice in which Amleth partakes. Due to the barbarity of the time and lack of religious jurisdiction, once Amleth’s father dies, he conducts a phenomenon that Fredson Bowers calls “blood revenge” taught to him by his predecessor. 

Through father-son relations, society expects Horwendil to teach Amleth his violent tendencies and naturalize his brutality from an early age. Thus, when Amleth’s father unnaturally dies, the notion of revenge through violence is ingrained as a natural response for Amleth. The complex concept of blood revenge is explained thoroughly stating “[if] injury was inflicted on one individual to another […] for redress of this personal injury […] the only possible action for the primitive individual was a direct revenge upon his injurer” (Bowers 3). Blood revenge comes from primitive times and is implemented due to the lack of state or religiously sanctioned rules. Bowers explains that in times before laws and religion, it was a regular occurrence for people to avenge any wrongdoings that happened to them through violence against the initial assaulter. Not only was it a common occurrence, but it was encouraged because it was the only way to receive any justice. Furthermore, the act of blood revenge is based on its independence from other people, it focuses on the ability of one person to individually conduct redress of wrongdoings that happened to them or someone close to them. When Saxo Grammaticus wrote The Danish History, this notion of duty and personal fulfillment of justice persisted; thus, his main character, Amleth, reflects this value. The widely practiced phenomenon of blood revenge, alongside Amleth’s naturalized will for violence, makes the decision for brutal murder to avenge his late father easy and naturally ingrained. 

Shakespeare made many alterations to the original story; his largest and most impactful change to Saxo’s narrative is his implementation of Christianity and the subversion of outward violence. Hamlet, although brought up by a king similar to Horwinidil, is an educated university student. Due to his educated status, he has a more complex relationship with the understanding of violence and what occurs after it. Thus, Hamlet is battling between having self-determination though his connection to religion, and his father’s wishes to immorally avenge him. The religious notion that plagues Hamlet is the understanding that “[t]here’s a divinity that shapes our ends” thus implying that free will does not entirely exist within Shakespeare’s Hamlet (5.2.10). Furthermore, Peter Sacks explains how revenge stems from an insecurity that the divine will not do its job; He states, “[a] similar onset of skepticism had undermined trust in the divinely guaranteed nature of justice, leaving in its wake […] human law” (Sacks 578). Because Amleth’s plot takes place prior to any implementation of Christianity and is rooted in paganism, human law takes precedent. However, given that the story of Hamlet contains a notion of divinity, the title character struggles with conducting human law or trusting that God will conduct the necessary justice. 

The understanding of human law versus divine law is not overtly complex for Hamlet until the ghost figure of his father arrives. The dead king shakes up Hamlet’s understanding of the divine due to its nuanced correlations. Norman Austen explains that even though Hamlet is an educated Christian, he does acknowledge the divine elements ghosts hold, thus making his father’s ghost “less substantial than flesh and blood, but much more powerful” (Austin 154). The entire notion of Hamlet’s father coming back from the dead poses an extremely difficult understanding for Hamlet to battle with. Stephen Greenblatt explains that, 

Hamlet and Amleth have a large difference by way of generational divides from their fathers. Amleth does not have any generational divide, and he thus can brutally kill without any morality plaguing his mind. However, Hamlet is a student who understands the complicated relationship between violence and religion that his dead father does not. When speaking to Horatio, who went to university with Hamlet, he states “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than there are dreamt in your philosophy” (2.1.168-69). Thus we see how divinity transgresses the bounds of time and human thought, which was not an aspect present within Amleth, nor King Hamlet’s time. Margreta de Grazia explains in her book Hamlet without Hamlet, that, 

In the scene where Hamlet is most open about his wishes for revenge, he portrays himself as very similar to Amleth. His mirroring of Amleth’s willingness to murder occurs when he has the chance to kill King Claudius and does not carry it out because his uncle is in prayer. Hamlet states: 

Furthermore, other characters in the play also have a distinct connection to Saxo’s original story. Laertes, Polonius’ son who Hamlet kills, shows direct connection to Amleth’s inner workings by way of his immediate willingness to avenge his father and kill Hamlet in return. Laertes is a direct reference to Saxo’s Amleth as he is devoid or uncaring towards any religious prioritization. Instead, as soon as he hears of the murder of his father (and later suicide of his sister Ophilia), he begins to take actions to avenge them — correlating to the same blood revenge norm as in Saxo. Lhoussain Simour explains how the notion of Laertes’ willingness to murder begins “the catastrophe of the play [and] the second cycle of revenge” (Simour 17). By implementing Simour’s point we can understand the strong similarities between Amleth and Laertes’ respective characterizations. These connections are especially present when Laertes states while conspiring with King Claudius about the murder of Hamlet, “I will do’t / and for purpose I’ll anoint my sword,” (4.4.138-39). We see, here, the extremely close connection Laertes and Amleth have and that Shakespeare implemented Laertes as a mirror to Amleth. Even though there are direct relations between Amleth and Laertes, a key difference comes in the forgiveness Hamlet and Laertes grant each other at the end of the play. This forgiveness is paramount to the notion of community present in Hamlet as it comes for the element of religion. The ability for the two enemies to forgive each other in the end brings the tragedy to another level while also contrasting Saxo’s The Danish History’s individual and unforgiving approach to vengeance. 

It may seem that Saxo Grammaticus’ The Danish History and Shakespeare’s Hamlet are both stories of independent men conducting revenge, yet only one of these fits into this classification. The Danish History is an individual revenge plot, as there is no direct intervention in Amleth’s wish to conduct revenge by any outside parties. Furthermore, Amleth also has no connection to any religion or divine structure, giving him the full ability to carry out his self-made revenge plot through free will. The lack of coercion and religion and the understanding that all acts committed by Amleth in the story are his own conscious decisions are the biggest deviation between Saxo and Shakespeare’s works. Shakespeare’s Hamlet, then, takes the opposite position, being a story characterized by the title character’s lack of self-determination and individual agency; it is a story based on community, which necessitates Hamlet to conduct a revenge plot. Saxo’s The Danish History depicts Amleth as the perpetrator due to his connection to blood revenge and historical Danish pagan ideals that allow him to be a sole agent of his vengeance, while Shakespeare’s Hamlet focuses on communal and Christian efforts in the revenge plot, taking away some of his individual agency and ending more tragically.