It has been suggested that Shakespeare chose the name Hamlet in honor of his only son, Hamnet. The two names may have been interchangeable in Elizabethan times, as both are Anglicized versions of the Danish Amleth. Hamnet Shakespeare died in 1596, and the play Hamlet was written sometime between 1599 and 1602.
OF COURSE. This makes perfect sense. It also speaks volumes of the despair and tone of the whole play. THANK YOU. I don't even know what caused that thought. Oh, yes, Rosie. She was talking about towns, cities, hamlets, etc., and I got to thinking about Hamlet.
Just think; all this time I assumed it meant a delicious slice of something that I enjoy in one of my small sandwiches. it certainly makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
If indeed he wrote it. The complete works of WS would have taken more than one lifetime to write, and that's with the benefit of a typewriter and without the time-consuming task of taking the show on the road as producer/director, which we know Bill did. It has been theorised that as the Reformation was in full swing in Elizabethan England and the Catholic monasteries were being pillaged, one or more of those may have held the trove that Shakespeare put his name to. The tale of Macbeth (spelled Makbeth) was well known in Scottish folklore in Chaucer's time.
Walt O'Reagun 