Graham
Holderness.
The Prince of Denmark.
Hatfield: University
of
Hertfordshire
Press, 2002.
xi,228pp.
Hardback ISBN
1902806123.
Publisher's
recommended price £16.99
In this
novel the
story of Hamlet is reinvented and reset in an intensively
imagined
Scandinavian culture, a time somewhere between the Scandinavian Dark
Ages
(out of which the tale of Hamlet came), and the Renaissance society of
Shakespeare's play. As in Shakespeare, centuries of time are conflated
and deliberate anachronism used to indicate that this fictional history
is more a matter of cultural change than of dates.
Beginning
at the
end of the play, where the Norwegian prince Fortinbras takes over the
empty
throne of Denmark, it backtracks to the year of Hamlet's birth, and the
great duel fought between his father King Amled and Fortinbras' father
Prince Fortenbrasse.
Then
re-examining
the relationship between Hamlet and Ofelia, and probing the
circumstances
of Ofelia's mysterious suicide, the novel goes on to imagine the
possibiity
of a different plot, that does not end with the prince's murder, one in
which the conflicts and alliances between ancient Viking chivalry,
Renaissance realpolitik
and Christian forgiveness are drmatically explored.
The
geography
of The Prince of Denmark brings to life, in vividly described
scenes,
places from the past - Elsinore, Wittenberg, Lindisfarne, Iceland;
figures
from Shakespeare; and newly imagined characters from the
might-have-been
of history.
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