SOURCE: Pandit, Lalita. “Language in the Textual Unconscious: Shakespeare, Ovid, and Saxo Grammaticus.” In Criticism and Lacan: Essays and Dialogue on Language, Structure, and the Unconscious, edited by Patrick Colm Hogan and Lalita Pandit, pp. 248-67. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1990.

In the following essay, Pandit explores how Shakespeare's characterization of Hamlet builds upon his memory of various sources, including Saxo's, as well as upon his audience's familiarity with the playwright's life and other works.

It is, however, precisely with that private mythology that any examination of the stranger in Shakespeare must begin, though obviously the communal mythology which he inherited from his sources, along with plot structures and casts of characters, must also be taken into account. Especially important is the body of myth implicit in those fairy tales, fabliaux, and novelle to which he turned constantly in search of story material and most especially, the...