And yet, considering the very short list of characters, it could have been a village. But haunted castles always sell better, as do the goings on in the lives of those in the upper levels of society, which, on the surface, seem infinitely more interesting than our own. That’s not to demean Shakespeare, the most talented writer and wordsmith of any age. But he needed to have an eye for what would attract the crowds to his plays.
There was actually a mystery short story based on that confusion. The murder victim had been overheard saying something about a “miserable hamlet,” and one of the investigators thought he’d been killed by rural locals angry with the city slicker. The priest (Father Brown) who solved the case realized the locals didn’t have that much pride in their hometown…
SPOILER
…both killer and victim were actors, and they were bad-mouthing each other’s performances.
franksmin over 6 years ago
I always thought Hamlet was a story about a little pig?
danketaz Premium Member over 6 years ago
You sure it’s not about light and fluffy eggs?
sandpiper over 6 years ago
And yet, considering the very short list of characters, it could have been a village. But haunted castles always sell better, as do the goings on in the lives of those in the upper levels of society, which, on the surface, seem infinitely more interesting than our own. That’s not to demean Shakespeare, the most talented writer and wordsmith of any age. But he needed to have an eye for what would attract the crowds to his plays.
chris_weaver over 6 years ago
To pun or not to pun.
Iron Pounder over 6 years ago
He found a reference on Face Book and ran with it.
enigmamz over 6 years ago
“Is this a town name sign without a population indicator I see before me?”
Or is that joke too American?
ChessPirate over 6 years ago
And some say that it was Bacon that actually wrote the plays. Bacon? Hamlet? Coincidence? ☺
Hippogriff over 6 years ago
I thought William Faulkner wrote The Hamlet. Where there’s a Will, there’s a way.
DHBirr over 6 years ago
There was actually a mystery short story based on that confusion. The murder victim had been overheard saying something about a “miserable hamlet,” and one of the investigators thought he’d been killed by rural locals angry with the city slicker. The priest (Father Brown) who solved the case realized the locals didn’t have that much pride in their hometown…
SPOILER
…both killer and victim were actors, and they were bad-mouthing each other’s performances.