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Article: Shakespeare's Elsinore.(place in 'Hamlet')
- Article from:
- Contemporary Review
- Article date:
- December 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Contemporary Review Company Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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'But what is your affair in Elsinore?' asks Hamlet (1.2.174). Standing in for Horatio, I reply that I am here to visit the town and castle, as guest of the Danish Tourist Board. My objective is to study the location for its bearing on the play. I think that the place tells us a great deal about Hamlet.
Shakespeare conflated the port, Helsingor, and the castle, Kronborg, into one word: Elsinore. The play is clearly set within the castle and its grounds, save perhaps for the graveyard scene (5.1). It is Kronborg that matters, a word never mentioned in Hamlet but the key to the play. This is the fortress that Frederik II built to enforce Danish command of the ...