How old were Hamlet, Sydney, Essex, and Lord Strange at their deaths?
People argue about Hamlet’s age. The ghost calls him “thou noble youth” (1.5); Ophelia describes his “blown youth / Blasted with ecstasy” (3.1). Hamlet was a university student: Rhodri Lewis notes, “the median age of matriculation at Oxford for the years 1600-02 was 17.1. Among the aristocracy and gentry it was substantially lower, at 15.9 years” [1]. But given the gravedigger’s remarks in two later editions [2] regarding Hamlet’s birth and Yorick’s death, people assume Hamlet was 30 and ignore references to his youth. Yet why would he still be at university at 30, and want to go back? [3] Rhodri Lewis makes an argument for the gravedigger feigning a competence with numbers that he doesn’t possess [4]. Perhaps too many assume that Shakespeare was writing under the same rules as modern writers regarding faithfulness to details. The gravedigger’s estimate of 30 years may also have pointed to at least three famous Elizabethan men who died in their 30s, and perhaps also a religious...
