what is the meaning of "Hamlet" ?

[zoly]

somebody told me that "Hamlet" word means "a church without a priest".I did not hear it from anyone else.Do you know is it right?what is the real meaning of "Hamlet" ?

[ukov]

hamlet
Noun
1. a community of people smaller than a village
(synonym) crossroads
(hypernym) community
2. a settlement smaller than a town
(synonym) village
(hypernym) settlement
(hyponym) Kampong, campong

Source:
WordNet 2.0

[Anglika]

Originally Posted by zoly

somebody told me that "Hamlet" word means "a church without a priest".I did not hear it from anyone else.Do you know is it right?what is the real meaning of "Hamlet" ?

In England, technically a hamlet is a settlement that does not have a parish church.

[zoly]

Thank you very much,
but I always think :
why shakespear used this word for his main character?If he could not use better name that shows maddnes and loneliness of him?why this word that means "a settlement that does not have a parish church"???

Thank you again.

[Anglika]

It has nothing to do with the word for a settlement. It is the anglicisation of a Danish name Amleth.

[Mad-ox]

A settlement without a church is like a body without soul or like a cake without cream. I think this idea clearly emphasizes, figuratively, Hamlet's lonliness, isolation and consequently his madness.

[Anglika]

Originally Posted by Mad-ox

A settlement without a church is like a body without soul or like a cake without cream. I think this idea clearly emphasizes, figuratively, Hamlet's lonliness, isolation and consequently his madness.

Maybe, but I very much doubt if Shakespeare would have thought that. And there is nothing in the play to suggest that Hamlet is in any way isolated or indeed lonely.

[zoly]

Thank you Mad-ox,
you say good point.

[Batfink]

Originally Posted by Anglika

Maybe, but I very much doubt if Shakespeare would have thought that. And there is nothing in the play to suggest that Hamlet is in any way isolated or indeed lonely.

A "settlement without a church" would be more like a republic, in which the citizens are equal.

I studied Shakespeare at university and he wrote Hamlet around the death of a son, Hamnet. He got to the (rich and successful) stage of his life where he could have a name plaque designed for this name. So it must have been devastating for him in many ways to lose a son.

Hamlet was Irish! Hehehe. The name is derived from how people interpreted and spelt our names from Gaelic! lolol...

"The close parallels between the tale of Hamlet and the English romances of Havelok, King Horn and Bevis of Hampton make it not unlikely that Hamlet is of Irish rather than of Scandinavian origin. His name does in fact occur in the Irish Annals of the Four Masters in a stanza attributed to the Irish Queen Gormflaith, who laments the death of her husband, Niall Glundubh, at the hands of Amhlaide in 919 at the battle of Ath-Cliath. The slayer of Niall Glundubh is by other authorities stated to have been Sigtrygg Caech. Sigtrygg was the father of that Olaf Cuaran (also known as Anlaf) who was the prototype of the English Havelok, but nowhere else does he receive the nickname of Amhlaide. If Amhlaide may really be identified with Sigtrygg, who first went to Dublin in 888, the relations between the tales of Havelok and Hamlet are readily explicable, since nothing was more likely than that the exploits of father and son should be confounded. But, whoever the historic Hamlet may have been, it is quite certain that much was added that was extraneous to Scandinavian tradition.
Hugh Kenner asserted that the Hamlet name originated because the first literate people the Danes encountered were the Irish. The Gaelic alphabet, then, as now, contained 18 letters, so even simple sounds required many letters. According to Kenner, "Amhl=owl and aoi=ay and bh=v, so Amhlaoibh = Olaf, but it got copied out in Latin as Amlethus and Shakespeare inherited Hamlet, Prince of Denmark." (Kenner, W. H., 1989. Personal communication.)"



Hamlet (legend) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Irish are a very old and very proud people.

Happy Paddy's Day to all, remember that there are two types of people in the world. The Irish, and those who want to be Irish!!!

[Batfink]

Also Hamlet was not mad. Deeply saddened and disturbed, he was, which is understandable in the context of the situation. He feigned madness: as Polonious said of him (and a great idiom that I use about myself when i address my students), "there is method in his madness".*

Shakespeare is responsible for a great majority of idioms in our language.