'Hamlet': Date and early afterlife (Shakespeare)

Echoes of Hamlet are present in two plays of winter 1599/1600: Antonio and Mellida and Lust's Dominion. Correspondences between Hamlet and each of the se plays are too strong to be coincidental and they offer clear evidence of direction. The comic genre of Antonio and Mellida, and the existence of di stinctive material shared by Hamlet and both Antonio plays, makes the prosp ect of a common source for these plays (such as the lost ur-Hamlet) an impr obable hypothesis. The evidence for the dates of the debtor plays is powerf ul. The permeation of their texts from Hamlet's lines is so widespread that a possible influence in the course of any revisions subsequent to 1599/160 0 may be discounted. If the arguments outlined above are sound, then we mus t accept a Shakespearian Hamlet composed by the end of 1599. This is not in consistent with other evidence for Hamlet's date. The suggested date offers a sharpened context for Hamlet's inception, and--as context confers meanin g--invites a clearer understanding of the tragedy. The evidence of indebted ness, if valid, itself constituted the play's immediate surviving afterlife .